Publicly available online course as a promising tool for teaching and promoting first aid skills in cardiac arrest

Relevance. The probability of resuscitation in cardiac arrest depends on incident eyewitnesses’ ability to timely and correctly provide first aid to the victim. However, such skills require appropriate training. With poor availability of face-to-face training in cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR), alternative training formats, including online e-learning, are gaining prominence to ensure widest dissemination of the life-saving competencies among general population.The objective is to study personal experience and attitudes among the individuals who completed the publicly available open online course on basic CPR (basic life support) skills in order to identify prospects and practical value of such online distance training aimed at CPR skills mainstreaming and better training availability.Methods. From July 2020 to August 2022, we conducted an anonymous survey among individuals who had completed the public open online course on basic life support training presented in Russian language. Our digital questionnaire included 16 questions designed to collect information on prior CPR training experience, training constraints, willingness to engage in volunteer teaching of CPR principles and respondent demographics. Data was analyzed using nonparametric statistics.Results and discussion. The analytical sample included 4342 respondents, mostly residents of Russia (81.1 %), including women (63.1 %), individuals aged under 40 y. (81.2 %), those without prior medical education (84.9 %), as well as schoolchildren and students (41.5 %). 44.2 % of respondents received no prior CPR training before the online course, mainly because they had been unaware of its practical value (39.4 % of respondents without CPR training experience) or had not known where to get trained (34.4 %). 76.3 % of respondents confirmed willingness to engage in volunteer teaching of CPR principles. Willingness to teach CPR to other individuals was related to prior experience of resuscitation training (the rate of respondents ready for CPR teaching was 77.5 % among those with prior resuscitation training and 74.9 % among those without such prior training, p = 0.043).Conclusion. Poor public awareness of CPR training importance and limited availability of training are the major constraints in acquiring life-saving knowledge and skills. As a publicly available tool for remote self-training, including within blended distant-classroom learning, the free online training course opens up great prospects for extensive mainstreaming of first aid skills, offering broad public coverage. The majority of online training graduates are willing to engage in volunteer CPR teaching, thus providing additional opportunities to increase availability of CPR training.