Knowledge and attitudes towards cardiopulmonary resuscitation: A cross sectional survey on health care providers in clinical practice

Cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) is a critical, life-saving skill for healthcare professionals (HCPs) in emergency departments (EDs) and other health care settings and are expected to have a profound knowledge of the CPR guidelines. A cross-sectional study was carried out among 160 health care providers to assess the level of knowledge and attitude towards cardiopulmonary resuscitation. Data analysis were done by SPSS software version-20. Total respondents in the study were 160 health care providers (HCP) and among them 80 respondents were doctors and 80 respondents were nurses. Among the respondents, 69% were female and 31% were male. Regarding the CPR training, 51% doctors and 49% had trained in CPR. Regarding performing the CPR, 58% doctors performed CPR and 66.2% nurses had performed CPR in clinical practice. Regarding meaning of the CPR, majority (92%) respondents knew correctly as ventilation and chest compression. More than half 58% respondents correctly knew about cardiac massage as to apply strong compression to the chest wall in certain interval. Regarding component of the CPR, nearly two third (65%) respondents correctly knew as chest compression and ventilation. Regarding sequence of the CPR,71 % respondents incorrectly knew sequence of CPR as Airway-Breathing-Compression (A-B-C) and 29.38% correctly knew as Compression-Airway-Breathing (C-A-B) as the sequence of the CPR. Among the total respondents, 62.5 % respondents had average level of knowledge, 18.12% had good level and 19.38% had poor level of knowledge on CPR and CPR training were associated significantly with the CPR knowledge. Among the total respondents 70.62% had neutral attitude, 15.0% had positive and 14.38% had negative attitude to perform CPR. Doctors were more knowledgeable than nurses, and they also had more positive opinions on CPR than nurses. The study showed that CPR training was taken by both health care providers. The study also showed that nurses (53%) performed the CPR more than the doctors in clinical practice. The dissimilarity in knowledge and attitudes among the health care providers suggest that training courses on the CPR should be regularly provided to health care providers specially focusing on nurses in the country.