Bystander Cardiopulmonary Resuscitation Training In Primary And Secondary School Children In China And The Impact Of Neighborhood Socioeconomic Status

Objective:The World Health Organization(WHO)has endorsed school bystander cardiopulmonary resuscitation(CPR)training programs.But related researches in China are limited.Therefore,our study intends to explore the present condition of emergency awareness and CPR knowledge among Chinese primary and secondary students,and the impact of neighborhood socio-economic status(SES)on,and then perform CPR training to further evaluate the effectiveness and feasibility of popularizing CPR knowledge in Chinese primary and secondary schools.Methods:A total of 1093 students from seven primary and secondary schools in 4 cities of Zhejiang province participated in this study.The students are the fifth,sixth grade in primary school and the first and second grade in secondary school.The study was approved by the Ethics Committee of The First Affiliated Hospital of Zhejiang University and the headmasters of the selected schools.Theoretical and practical bystander CPR training were conducted in instructor-led classes.Students completed a 10-statement questionnaire before and after training,and then the students from 5 schools underwent a skills assessment during a simulated basic life support(BLS)scenario.Subgroup analyses were stratified according to neighborhood SES.Results:The Chinese primary and secondary school students known less knowledge about bystander CPR,but most students(72.83%)had a strong desire to learn bystander CPR and share this knowledge with others.After training,CPR theory and skills was significantly improved(p<0.01)and 92.64%students reached an 85-100%performance rate in a simulated BLS scenario.Moreover,23.74%students had never heard of CPR,especially the students from low-SES neighborhoods(p<0.01).However,their performance was similar with students from higher-SES neighborhoods on the post-training questionnaire and the skills assessment,and better among students aged 13-14years.This can be explained that although their initial baseline levels are different,but the ability of learning bystander CPR for different SES students is similar.Conclusions:The Chinese primary and secondary school children known less knowledge about bystander CPR especially for students in low socio-economic status neighborhood,they were motivated to learn and share this knowledge with others.Further we showed these schoolchildren had developed significant enhancement in CPR theoretical knowledge and skills performance after the training.And we found that the ability of learning CPR knowledge for different SES students was similar although their initial baseline levels are different.Therefore,bystander CPR training efforts should be targeted to Chinese primary and secondary school children,especially in low-SES neighborhoods.