Is the teaching of Immediate Life Support useful in the medium term for medical students?

• Published in: Educación médica 2022-01, Vol.23 (1), p.100715, Article 100715
• Main Authors: Cárdenas-Cruz, Antonio, Sánchez-Vargas, Pilar, Redruello-Guerrero, Pablo, Vasserot-Vargas, Francisco J., Martin-Piedra, Miguel A., Santiago-Suárez, Isabel M., Rivera-Izquierdo, Mario, Parrilla-Ruiz, Francisco M.
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Advanced Life Support; Arritmias básicas; Basic arrhythmias; Cardiopulmonary resuscitation; Curva de olvido; Estudiante de medicina; Forgetting curve; Immediate Life Support; Instrumentalised airway management; Manejo instrumentalizado de la vía aérea; Medical student; Reanimación cardiopulmonar; Soporte vital avanzado; Soporte vital inmediato
• ISSN: 1575-1813; 1579-2099
• DOI: 10.1016/j.edumed.2022.100715

Immediate Life Support training is under-represented in medical degrees and little information is available on the medium-term effectiveness of its teaching. Our aim was to analyse the forgetting curve in medical students who received specific training in the three main procedural competencies of Immediate Life Support. A prospective 3-month longitudinal study was conducted on final year medical students at a Spanish university. The items assessed were grouped into three competencies: the performance of cardiopulmonary resuscitation (nine items), instrumentalised airway management with a supraglottic device (five items) and the identification of basic arrhythmias responsible for cardiorespiratory arrest (four items). All measurements were assessed immediately after the training programme and at three months. McNemar's tests were used for statistical analyses. The medical students recruited showed high rates of correct execution of the manoeuvres for all assessed items, both immediately after the programme and at three months. Over 90% of students performed all the manoeuvres correctly at three months, except for appropriate cardiac massage frequency (85.71%). No significant differences were appreciated between the two assessments. The 3-month forgetting curve in Immediate Life Support was non-existent for medical students, suggesting that these programmes are effective in the medium term. This study provides further evidence on a discipline that is undertrained in medical degrees and that is scarcely studied in the current literature. La formación en Soporte Vital Inmediato está poco representada en las titulaciones de medicina y se dispone de poca información sobre la eficacia a medio plazo de su enseñanza. Nuestro objetivo fue analizar la curva de olvido en los estudiantes de medicina que recibieron formación específica en las tres principales competencias procedimentales del Soporte Vital Inmediato. Se realizó un estudio longitudinal prospectivo de 3 meses en estudiantes de último curso de medicina de una universidad española. Los ítems evaluados se agruparon en tres competencias: la realización de la reanimación cardiopulmonar (nueve ítems), el manejo instrumentalizado de la vía aérea con dispositivo supraglótico (cinco ítems) y la identificación de las arritmias básicas responsables de la parada cardiorrespiratoria (cuatro ítems). Todas las mediciones se evaluaron inmediatamente después del programa de formación y a los tres meses. Se utilizó el test