Teaching Hands-Only CPR (HOCPR) skills to 8 th -grade students in urban Bengaluru: Development of a comprehensive Hands-Only CPR programme for high school students

Out-of-hospital cardiac arrest is one of the leading causes of death in India. Only 1.3% of these arrests receive bystander cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR). Bystander CPR increases a victim's chances of survival; training school children in Hands-Only CPR (HOCPR) is a proven method of increasing bystander CPR rates. Heart Rescue India is an international project working to improve care for cardiovascular diseases, and as a part of it, a ten module Cardiovascular disease (CVD) educational programme, including HOCPR training, was conducted in ten schools in 2017-18. The objective of our study was to assess the effectiveness of HOCPR training for 8 -grade high school students. Four hundred fourteen of the 530 enroled students from ten schools of Bengaluru participated in the study. The participants attended a one-hour didactic session about the recognition of cardiac arrest and HOCPR in three simple steps. Subsequently, students received hands-on training for HOCPR. The sessions included pre- and post-assessment of knowledge and skills. The results were statistically analysed using paired t-test and the McNemar test. The mean overall pre-assessment score for knowledge was 62.07 ± 28.38%, and the post-assessment score was 72.42 ± 26.58% ( < 0.001). In addition, there was a statistically significant improvement in the post-training scores for HOCPR in all three parameters, namely compressions per minute, depth and chest recoil. The study demonstrated a simple yet effective HOCPR programme for high school children.