• C Gasco, M Avellanal, and M Sánchez.
• Department of Anesthesiology, School of Dentistry, Complutense University, Madrid, Spain. mcgasco@eucmos.sim.ucm.es
• Resuscitation. 2000 Aug 1;45(3):189-94.

IntroductionAlthough life threatening emergencies in dental practice are not frequent, dentists have to be competent in providing basic life support (BLS).ObjectivesThe aim of this work was to study the level of skills acquisition among dentistry students in two different periods of one rescuer-BLS training, a first short practice training of 2 h followed by 8 h of practice over a period of 2 months.MethodsOne hundred and sixteen second-year undergraduate students of Anesthesiology at the Dental School of the Complutense University in Madrid were tested at the end of the two periods of learning using a recording manikin with a validated scoring system (Laerdal Resusci-Anne). This manikin recorded the percentage of adequate chest compressions and insuflations, rate of chest compressions and the causes of error in each case.ResultsFinal global results were, 51.66+/-3.0% adequate chest compressions; and 54.44+/-3.61% adequate insuflations. The kinds of errors where different in both tests were, wrong hand position (26.92+/-2.96 vs. 12.29+/-2.40%, P<0.001); excessive compressions (27.71+/-2.90 vs. 16.02+/-2.33%, P<0.05); and weak compressions (23.28+/-3.24 vs. 16.77+/-2.57%, P<0.05). Regression analysis found a positive correlation among excessive compression, height and weight (P<0.001) and a negative correlation between weak compression, height and weight (P<0.001).ConclusionsThe poor overall results, although similar to those shown in the literature, have made us question the validity of our methods of teaching BLS. We were able to establish a correlation between demographic and sociocultural variables with the typical errors, and to begin the process of improving our teaching methods.

14 keywords...

hide…