Effectiveness of cardiopulmonary resuscitation training in the teaching of family members of cardiac patients.

Objective: To evaluate the effectiveness of a cardiopulmonary resuscitation training in the skill acquisition of family members of heart disease patients.

Method: A quasi-experimental study, conducted in a hospital in São Paulo, Brazil. The study participants were one or more relatives of patients with heart disease that were hospitalized at the institution. In the first phase, the participant's skills and theoretical knowledge on cardiopulmonary resuscitation were evaluated before and immediately after the training. The second phase took place one month after the training, in which the same evaluations were applied. The McNemar's and Stuart-Maxwell tests were adopted (5% significance level).

Results: The theoretical knowledge of family members before and after training increased and a great retention of this knowledge after 30 days of training was observed. Immediately after training, the family members showed significant improvement of skills in the 15 analyzed actions and, after one month of training, they maintained most of the acquired practices on cardiopulmonary resuscitation, except for chest compressions frequency and the time between turning on the defibrillator and delivering the shock.

Conclusion: Cardiopulmonary resuscitation training was effective in the acquisition of theoretical and practical knowledge of the family members.