Differences in Basic Life Support Knowledge Between Junior Medical Students and Lay People: Web-Based Questionnaire Study

Early cardiopulmonary resuscitation and prompt defibrillation markedly increase the survival rate in the event of out-of-hospital cardiac arrest (OHCA). As future health care professionals, medical students should be trained to efficiently manage an unexpectedly encountered OHCA. Our aim was to assess basic life support (BLS) knowledge in junior medical students at the University of Geneva Faculty of Medicine (UGFM) and to compare it with that of the general population. Junior UGFM students and lay people who had registered for BLS classes given by a Red Cross-affiliated center were sent invitation links to complete a web-based questionnaire. The primary outcome was the between-group difference in a 10-question score regarding cardiopulmonary resuscitation knowledge. Secondary outcomes were the differences in the rate of correct answers for each individual question, the level of self-assessed confidence in the ability to perform resuscitation, and a 6-question score, "essential BLS knowledge," which only contains key elements of the chain of survival. Continuous variables were first analyzed using the Student t test, then by multivariable linear regression. Fisher exact test was used for between-groups comparison of binary variables. The mean score was higher in medical students than in lay people for both the 10-question score (mean 5.8, SD 1.7 vs mean 4.2, SD 1.7; P