Community Awareness About Cardiopulmonary Resuscitation Among Secondary School Students in Riyadh

It is very important that every person in the community know about Cardiopulmonary Resuscitation (CPR) to save lives and improve the quality of community health. However, there is a lack of research studies related to community awareness about CPR. The aim of this study was to examine the awareness and knowledge among secondary school students. Across-sectional design study was conducted by assessing the responses to self administered developed questionnaire. The questionnaire includes 11 questions regarding the awareness and knowledge related to CPR. The four first questions also involved the attitude of students about the application of CPR. Five hundred and eighty males and females students from Riyadh secondary schools answered and completed the questionnaire. Results revealed that: Out of a study sample of 580 males and females secondary school students, 56% did not have proper CPR information. The proper CPR information was higher among females than males: it was 87% and 61% for females and males students respectively. A bout 67% of all students would like to know more about CPR. Discussion: We examine the community awareness about CPR among secondary schools in Riyadh. There are sparse published studies which investigated the knowledge of CPR among school students. However, the lack of proper CPR information among students in this study was higher than previous CPR awareness studies. The possible explanation for this could be that other studies were carried out with health professionals who usually trained or oriented about CPR. The positive attitude towards CPR was similar to previous findings indicating the important role of CPR in saving patients life. Larger sample size and inclusion for more schools and universities would offer more information. As a conclusion / recommendation: It was found that the overall attitude is positive towards CPR. However, the proper CPR information was insufficient. Since CPR plays vital role in saving people life more studies are needed to examine the CPR information among people who live in the community and suggest strategies to introduce CPR training.