Can lightweight rescuers adequately perform CPR according to 2010 resuscitation guideline requirements?
- Asta Krikscionaitiene1,
- Kestutis Stasaitis1,
- Milda Dambrauskiene2,
- Zilvinas Dambrauskas3,
- Egle Vaitkaitiene4,
- Paulius Dobozinskas1,
- Dinas Vaitkaitis1
- 1Crises Research Centre, Department of Emergency and Disaster Medicine, Lithuanian University of Health Sciences, Kaunas, Lithuania
- 2Hospital of Lithuanian University of Health Sciences, Kaunas, Lithuania
- 3Department of Surgery, Laboratory of Surgical Gastroenterology, Institute for Digestive Research Lithuanian University of Health Sciences, Kaunas, Lithuania
- 4Department of Emergency and Disaster Medicine, Lithuanian University of Health Sciences, Kaunas, Lithuania
- Correspondence to Dr Zilvinas Dambrauskas, Department of Surgery, Lithuanian University of Health Sciences, Eiveniu 2, Kaunas LT-50009, Lithuania; zilvinas.dambrauskas{at}gmail.com
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Contributors All authors have made substantial contributions. AK, KS, MD and DV contributed to the conception and design of the study, acquisition of data, analysis and interpretation of data. AK, MD, ZD and EV contributed to drafting the article or revising it critically for important intellectual content. PD and DV contributed to final approval of the version to be submitted.
- Accepted 26 January 2012
- Published Online First 19 February 2012
Abstract
Aim To evaluate associations between rescuers' anthropometric characteristics and chest compressions (CC) depth according to 2010 resuscitation guidelines.
Methods 186 medical and pharmacy students, never trained in basic life support (BLS) before, underwent video self-instruction training. The participants were asked to perform a BLS test on a manikin connected to a PC for 6 min immediately after training, and the quality of the cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) skills was evaluated.
Results Women with body weights less than 56 kg were 6.29 times more likely to produce insufficient CCs than women weighing 56–62.7 kg, and 4.72 times more likely to produce insufficient CCs compared with women weighing more than 62.7 kg.
Conclusions Lightweight rescuers may have difficulty achieving the full compression depth of 5–6 cm required by new resuscitation guidelines. These rescuers require special attention during CPR training, with an emphasis on correct body positioning and use of body weight for CCs.
- Chest compressions
- CPR quality
- basic life support
- education
- effectiveness
- teaching
- cardiac arrest
- care systems
- methods
- first responders
- resuscitation
- training
Footnotes
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Competing interests None.
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Ethics approval The study was approved by the Regional Ethics Committee based at Lithuanian University of Health Sciences (Protocol No. BC-MF-188/2011).
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Provenance and peer review Not commissioned; internally peer reviewed.
