Aim: There are significant gaps in the research evidence related to interactions between chest compression (CC) components. Our aim was to evaluate how often the different ranges of CC depth and the rate was achieved in combination by first-year health care students when wearing surgical or cloth mask. Additional aim was to measure the changes in effectiveness over time.
Methods: To evaluate students’ CC performance, the AMBU CPR Software was used and the depth and rate of CC were detected during a 2-minute-long continuous session. Results were evaluated in two different ranges of CCs: ERC guidelines (depth of 5-6 cm and a rate of 100-120 min-1) and expanded ranges (depth of 3.8-5.6 cm and rate of 86-128 min-1).
Results: Two hundred and sixteen students were involved in the final analysis. Only 12.5% (27 students) of the participants were able to perform high-quality CCs that met the ERC criteria, and 46.7% (101 students) met the extended criteria. Measured separately the time periods, 16.2% (35 students) in the first, 11.6% (25 students) in the second, 9.7% (21) in the third, and 7.9% (17 students) in the fourth 30-sec interval met the ERC guidelines criteria (depth and rate in combination), and 50.5% (109 students) in the first, 48.1% (104 students) in the second, 42.6% (92) in the third, and 36.1% (78 students) in the fourth 30-sec interval met the extended criteria were able to perform high-quality CC. Effectiveness was significantly worse after 30 seconds based on both criteria (p<0.001).
Conclusion: The extremely low number of participants could achieve the recommended interval of depth and rate in combination. However, using extended intervals for evaluation may be easier to achieve for students. Deterioration was detectable within a short time period so changing the rescuer could be recommended more frequently than every 2 minutes.

Evaluation of chest compression’s effectiveness with different combinations of depth and rate - a secondary analysis of a randomized simulation study

Implementation of the Guidelines - How do we put the new ERC Guidelines into practice?

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