Abstract:
Background of The Study: Almost 33% of the Tanzanians have been affected with non communicable diseases mainly cardiovascular disease. In sub-Saharan Africa countries
including Tanzania, the mortality rate associated with cardiac arrest is expected to raise from
17.9 to 23 million deaths from2015 to 2030. Moreover, studies indicated that, most of recurrent
deaths in cardiac arrest patients were associated with poor performance of CPR. Hence, this
implies that there is a gap on the level of knowledge and skills among nurses in performing
cardiopulmonary resuscitation.
The aim of the study: To assess the effect of cardiopulmonary resuscitation training on
knowledge and perceived skills confidence among nurses at KCMC
Materials and Methods: Quantitative approach with pre- and post-research design was
employed to nurses who met the inclusion criteria in the study. Data were collected by a
structured questionnaire and a checklist before and after the CPR training. SPSS version 23
was used to analyze data in this study. Besides, a perceived skills confidence in CPR was
measured by a Likert scale. Furthermore, a paired t-test, nonparametric test were used to
measure the level of knowledge and perceived skills confidence respectively.
Results: The study enrolled 101 nurses, 80 (79.2%) females and 21 (20.8%) males with a
mean age of 33.67 (SD ± 8.9).The average score in pre- test was 47.84, SD± 15.597 and in
post-test was 83.08, SD± 11.4 P=0.000 and for perceived skills confidence among nurses
was (M) =3.195 SD± 0.897, implying moderate level of CPR perceived confidence.
(M)=4.166, SD± 00.582 suggesting high level of CPR perceived skills confidence among nurses at KCMC. Therefore, the mean difference between pre-test and post-test in nurse
knowledge regarding CPR was -35.245, which was statistically significant at a P value of
0.001.
Conclusion and recommendation
The nurses had inadequate CPR knowledge and moderate perceived skills confidence at pre test. Following training on CPR, there were significant improvements in both knowledge and
perceived skills confidence of nurses. Then, there is a need of conducting continue professional education regarding CPR to prevent the loss of knowledge and practices.
