Test to measure basic life support and defribillation skills in primary care doctors and nurses

Objective: To prepare and validate a tool to measure Basic Life Support (BLS) and semi-automatic defibrillator (SAD) skills adapted for use by health professionals in Primary Care Teams (PCT). To propose an updated version and demonstrate self-sufficiency of the team to use it in a training evaluation. Design: Validation of measurement tools. Study of reliability with repeated measurements after a training course. Setting: Drassanes Primary Care Centre. Raval Sud Basic Health Area. Barcelona. Spain. Participants: A total of 37 voluntary resuscitators (all doctors/nurses), professional camera, medical controller, computerised mannequin, 6 evaluators. Interventions: Test preparation methodology. Cardiff Model 3.1. Implementation: 2 filmed series (professional+domestic), of 26-25 "station type" simulations, separated by 1 month. A training workshop between series. Retrospective evaluation of DVD recordings (5 evaluators). 2nd series scored again at 3 weeks with a blind and random order filmed version. Main measurements: Variables: performances classified from worse to best execution. Psychometric analysis: Validity (content/apparent). Test-retest reliability, between-observer and sensitivity to change. Results: Compared to the Cardiff test (46 items) our 83 item test contained 38(46%) new, 34(41%) modified and 11(13%) similar. Between-evaluator reliability, excellent/good in 51/62 items analysed; Within-evaluator and between-filming reliability, excellent/good in all except 1 item; the test score doubled after the training course. A version of the test according to BLS-SAD recommendations is proposed. Conclusions: On there not being useful tools available for Primary Care doctors and nurses, one has been prepared with adequate psychometric guarantees and proven self-sufficient evaluation. We propose the immediate application of the updated version for training evaluation purposes. © 2008 Elsevier España, S.L. All rights reserved.