TRAINING ST-JOHN-AMBULANCE VOLUNTEERS TO USE AN AUTOMATED EXTERNAL DEFIBRILLATOR

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.