Influence of training on knowledge and skills acquisition of nurses regarding cardiopulmonary resuscitation at two selected district hospitals in Rwanda

Abstract

Introduction: The effective provision of cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) increases patient survival and reduces in-hospital mortality. As nurses are the front-line professionals in Hospital settings, it is very important for them to be equipped with tangible knowledge and skills regarding CPR to intervene promptly in a cardiac arrest. The well-trained nurses decrease mortality rate and increase the discharge of the patient who underwent cardiac arrest. The aim of this study was to explore the influence of the training on knowledge and skills of nurses at district hospital regarding cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR). Methodology: This is prospective, quasi-experimental and interventional study design, which took place at two randomly selected district hospitals: Kacyiru and Masaka. Sample size of 87 registered nurses and associated nurses was used, the sample size was obtained using Taro Yamane formula and the participants were obtained using a simple random sampling .The study was made of a pretest followed by CPR training using PowerPoint presentation, videos in line with AHA, 2015 guideline, mannequin and defibrillator, followed by post-test with same questionnaire and skills checklist used for pretest. Results: The results showed poor knowledge prior the teaching with a mean 30.4% which improved up to 73.5% for the post test. The same as for knowledge, the skills were poor with a mean of 22.8% prior the teaching and improved in the post teaching to 65.1%. The analysis was done using SPSS IBM version 23, for the descriptive statistics and Wilcoxon signed rank test was used for inferential statistics. Conclusion: Respondents had inadequate CPR knowledge and skills at the pretest. The study revealed statistically significant improvement in both knowledge and skills of CPR for all nurses post training. The respondent showed to be better in terms of knowledge than skills.