• Stefanie Beck, Vivian Meier-Klages, Maria Michaelis, Susanne Sehner, Sigrid Harendza, Christian Zöllner, and Jens Christian Kubitz.
• Department of Anaesthesiology, University Medical Center Hamburg-Eppendorf, Martini-Str. 52, 20246 Hamburg, Germany. Electronic address: st.beck@uke.de.
• Resuscitation. 2016 Nov 1; 108: 1-7.

BackgroundThe "kids save lives" joint-statement highlights the effectiveness of training all school children worldwide in cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) to improve survival after cardiac arrest. The personnel requirement to implement this statement is high. Until now, no randomised controlled trial investigated if medical students benefit from their engagement in the BLS-education of school children regarding their later roles as physicians. The objective of the present study is to evaluate if medical students improve their teaching behaviour and CPR-skills by teaching school children in basic life support.MethodsThe study is a randomised, single blind, controlled trial carried out with medical students during their final year. In total, 80 participants were allocated alternately to either the intervention or the control group. The intervention group participated in a CPR-instructor-course consisting of a 4h-preparatory seminar and a teaching-session in BLS for school children. The primary endpoints were effectiveness of teaching in an objective teaching examination and pass-rates in a simulated BLS-scenario.ResultsThe 28 students who completed the CPR-instructor-course had significantly higher scores for effective teaching in five of eight dimensions and passed the BLS-assessment significantly more often than the 25 students of the control group (Odds Ratio (OR): 10.0; 95%-CI: 1.9-54.0; p=0.007).ConclusionsActive teaching of BLS improves teaching behaviour and resuscitation skills of students. Teaching school children in BLS may prepare medical students for their future role as a clinical teacher and support the implementation of the "kids save lives" statement on training all school children worldwide in BLS at the same time.Copyright © 2016 Elsevier Ireland Ltd. All rights reserved.

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