The key to improving survival from pre-hospital cardiac arrest lies in
reducing the time interval between onset of cardiac arrest and defibr
illation. Placing automated external defibrillators at strategic point
s in the community could potentially reduce this time interval, but wo
uld necessitate widespread training in defibrillation for lay people i
n addition to health care workers. There are unanswered questions rega
rding the ability of lay people to acquire and retain this skill when
the training programme is, by necessity, very brief, (otherwise it wou
ld not be possible to train large enough numbers of people) and the sk
ill is used infrequently. In this study, nurse and lay volunteer first
-aiders were taught to use an automated external defibrillator, either
by a 2-h, or a 4-h course, and their skills were assessed at training
, and at 3 and 6 months afterwards. Using stringent assessment criteri
a, 54% of volunteers passed the assessment at every session. Little di
fference in acquisition or retention of skills between the nurse and l
ay volunteers, and the 2- and 4-h course groups was found. It is concl
uded that brief training in defibrillation for volunteer first-aiders
is feasible.