Group Size in Basic Life Support (BLS) Courses

Educational Problems Clinical Trial

Official title:

Determining a Threshold for the Clinical and Cost-effectiveness of Group Size During Basic Life Support Courses

Clinical Trial Details — Status: Completed

Administrative data

• NCT number: NCT03773861
• Other study ID #: Req- 2017- 00577
• Status: Completed
• Phase: N/A
• Start date: December 10, 2018
• Est. completion date: December 31, 2019

Study information

• Verified date: February 2021
• Source: University Hospital Inselspital, Berne
• Contact: n/a
• Is FDA regulated: No
• Study type: Interventional

Clinical Trial Summary

Basic Life Support (BLS) is important for outcome in cardiac arrest.Therefore, it is crucial to improve the quality of education in resuscitation training. Better training will eventually lead to more effective CPR skills in course participants. BLS courses in both international resuscitation associations (European Resuscitation Council and American Heart Association are typically taught in small groups of 6 participants. In reality group sizes of up to 10 participants are used, because these courses are highly demanded and cost intensive. There is no evidence for the effective group size to be clinical and cost effective. Therefore the investigators perform this prospective study to determine the maximum number of participants an instructor can oversee without missing more than 20% of errors made during an instructional BLS session.

Recruitment information / eligibility

• Status: Completed
• Enrollment: 64
• Est. completion date: December 31, 2019
• Est. primary completion date: December 31, 2019
• Accepts healthy volunteers: Accepts Healthy Volunteers
• Gender: All
• Age group: 18 Years to 70 Years

Eligibility

Inclusion Criteria:

• Active BLS- Instructors at the Bern Simulation and CPR-Center (BeSiC), at the Bern University Hospital, Bern, Switzerland

Exclusion Criteria:

• Decline to participate

Related Conditions & MeSH terms

• Educational Problems
• Resuscitation

Intervention

Other:
• errors made in one BLS session
BLS instructors have to oversee a standardized BLS training session, where standardized errors are made by trained volunteers.

Locations

Country	Name	City	State
Switzerland	University Hospital Bern	Bern

Sponsors (1)

Lead Sponsor	Collaborator
University Hospital Inselspital, Berne

Country where clinical trial is conducted

Switzerland, 

References & Publications (4)

Beck S, Issleib M, Daubmann A, Zöllner C. Peer education for BLS-training in schools? Results of a randomized-controlled, noninferiority trial. Resuscitation. 2015 Sep;94:85-90. doi: 10.1016/j.resuscitation.2015.06.026. Epub 2015 Jul 14. — View Citation

Cendan JC, Silver M, Ben-David K. Changing the student clerkship from traditional lectures to small group case-based sessions benefits the student and the faculty. J Surg Educ. 2011 Mar-Apr;68(2):117-20. doi: 10.1016/j.jsurg.2010.09.011. — View Citation

Chamberlain DA, Hazinski MF; European Resuscitation Council; American Heart Association; Heart and Stroke Foundation of Canada; Resuscitation Council of Southern Africa; Australia and New Zealand Resuscitation Council; Consejo Latino-Americano de Resusucitación. Education in resuscitation: an ILCOR symposium: Utstein Abbey: Stavanger, Norway: June 22-24, 2001. Circulation. 2003 Nov 18;108(20):2575-94. Review. — View Citation

Perkins GD, Handley AJ, Koster RW, Castrén M, Smyth MA, Olasveengen T, Monsieurs KG, Raffay V, Gräsner JT, Wenzel V, Ristagno G, Soar J; Adult basic life support and automated external defibrillation section Collaborators. European Resuscitation Council Guidelines for Resuscitation 2015: Section 2. Adult basic life support and automated external defibrillation. Resuscitation. 2015 Oct;95:81-99. doi: 10.1016/j.resuscitation.2015.07.015. Epub 2015 Oct 15. — View Citation

Outcome

Type	Measure	Description	Time frame	Safety issue
Primary	The threshold of number of course participants in a BLS educational session	How many volunteers can be overseen by one instructor who still is able to correctly identify and correct serious BLS errors of all course participants.	BLS educational session 10 minutes