Impact of Continuing Medical Education on Health Care Provider Performance in a Medical University, Karachi, Pakistan.

Abstract

Introduction: Basic life support (BLS), is the chain of survival and decreases the rate of cardiac arrest; health care professionals should know at least how to perform BLS individually as they may encounter such emergency very often. In the developed world, sudden cardiac death represents the single largest cause of natural death accounting for 12–18% of total mortality and 50% of cardiac mortality.
 Objectives: To determine the level of awareness regarding Basic Life Support and knowledge of involved skills and its practice among medical and non-medical personnel.
 Methodology: A retrospective study conducted by using valid questionnaire regarding Basic Life Support by 323 personnel. The results were analyzed with SPSS version 16.
 Results: Twenty-five questions were used to assess the level of knowledge/awareness and skills after BLS training. The percentage of correct answer varied from 33.1% to 95.7% for knowledge related items; and for skills items, it was varied from 35.3% to 68.4%.
 Conclusion: We recommend that Cardio Pulmonary Resuscitation/Basic Life Support should be a basic skill across all medical and non-medical personnel.
 Key words: Cardio-pulmonary resuscitation, Basic Life Support, KAP.