Early or Late Booster for Basic Life Support?

Ottawa Hospital Research Institute

Status: Completed

Conditions: Basic Life Support

Treatments: Other: Late Booster Teaching; Other: Early Booster Teaching

Study type: Interventional

Funder types: Other

Identifiers

NCT02998723

20150174-01H

Details and patient eligibility

About

Attrition of skills after basic life support (BLS) training is common. Psychology studies have established that for basic memory recall tasks, spaced learning strategies improve retention. Spaced learning is often organized as a refresher or 'booster' course after initial training. This study aims to investigate if this principle holds true for BLS skills, which require rapid memory recall and efficient deployment of procedural skills while under time pressure.

Full description

Novice laypeople who have not received BLS training in the 6 months leading up to the date of participation will be recruited from the University of Ottawa and the general public. Participants will be randomized into one of three groups: early booster, late booster, or no booster (control). Currently, no booster is the educational standard. The early booster group will receive a booster at 3 weeks, the late booster at 2 months, and no booster for the control. All participants will undergo BLS training, an immediate post-test, and a retention post-test at 4 months. Post-tests involve a simulated cardiac arrest scenario. Raters will be blinded to the group allocation and simulation test order.

Enrollment: 95 patients

Sex: All

Ages: 18+ years old

Volunteers: Accepts Healthy Volunteers

Inclusion criteria

• Laypeople who have not received any BLS training or practice in the 6 months leading up to the date of their participation will be recruited.

Exclusion criteria

• Under 18 years old;
• Non layperson and Basic Life Training in less than 6 months.

Trial design

Primary purpose: Other

Allocation: Randomized

Interventional model: Parallel Assignment

Masking: Single Blind

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95 participants in 3 patient groups

Early Booster Teaching

Experimental group

Description:

The early booster group will receive a booster teaching session at 3 weeks post-training followed by feedback.

Treatment:

Other: Early Booster Teaching

Late booster Teaching

Active Comparator group

Description:

The late booster group will receive a booster teaching session at 2 months post-training followed by feedback.

Treatment:

Other: Late Booster Teaching

Control group

No Intervention group

Description:

The control group will receive no booster at all.