Basic Life Support: Knowledge and Attitude of Medical Students - Abstract
Background: Basic life support (BLS) is defined as medical procedures and skills that can be utilized in case of emergency to save lives. It is a key component of chain of survival, decreases the cardiac arrest, CPR interval, and increases the rate of hospital discharge. CPR is a part of emergency medical care. Timely provision of Basic Life Support (BLS) saves life.
Objective: The objective of our study is:
• To assess BLS knowledge of students of Allama Iqbal Medical College, Pakistan
• To assess attitude of students of Allama Iqbal Medical College, Pakistan regarding BLS
Study design: It is a cross sectional study.
Study setting: Allama Iqbal Medical College, Pakistan.
Duration: Three months (April-June), 2016.
Inclusion criteria: All medical students, both hostilities and day scholars of Allama Iqbal Medical College from first year to final year Bachelor of Medicine and Bachelor of Surgery (MBBS), including both genders.
Data collection and analysis: An informed consent was taken and got signed from 300 medical undergraduate students on assurance of confidentiality. The following parameters were noted through a constructed questionnaire of all medical students included in the study; personal and socio demographic data such as age, sex, class, knowledge, attitude, level of training and previous exposure to Basic Life Support (BLS).
Results: The mean age of the respondents was 20.5700 with Standard deviation (SD) of 1.52. Out of the 300 study subjects, 243 students (81%) have heard about BLS while 57 students (19%) haven’t heard about BLS ( Graph no: 3). 239 students (79.67%) have the idea regarding correct abbreviation of BLS while others have no idea ( Graph no: 4). 94.3% students think BLS knowledge is useful for daily life incidents, and 20.3% don’t think so. 44.3% students have seen BLS done on some patients and 9.6% have not seen it. 13.4% students have also performed BLS on some patient and 2.9% have not performed
(Table no: 2).
Conclusions: Knowledge about BLS needs to be improved and conferences, seminars must be organized to increase awareness about BLS.