A cross sectional study to assess the knowledge, attitude and practice of basic life support in interns in a tertiary care hospital in delhi

Introduction: Knowledge of BLS and practice of simple CPR techniques ensures the survival of the patient long enough till experienced medical help arrives and in most cases is itself sufficient for survival. Ideally, everyone should know BLS and CPR, but its awareness to medical personnel is invaluable as they face many such situations in their life especially in buddings doctors who will have tackle this kind of emergencies in their medical practice and it has been part of their teaching. With this the study was planned to assess the awareness of medical interns regarding BLS and understanding the deficits was planned with the objectives to assess the knowledge, awareness and practices of Basic Life Support in medical interns in a tertiary care Hospital of Delhi and to assess the need of including BLS in the medical curriculum. Material and Methods: A cross-sectional study was done with pre designed and pretested interview schedule based on AHA, 2015 guidelines. Consent was taken and those who consented were asked to fill the schedule in the presence of investigator to clear the doubts in understanding any question. Results: Response rate was 93.7 with 60 % males study participants. Significant knowledge gap was found which was depicted in proportions and knowledge score. Self-grading regarding BLS (22.7% above average) or Initiating was low (41.4% were confident) with lack of professional training (67%) was considered to be the main cause of that. Conclusion: Our findings suggest inadequate basic life support knowledge and need of regular trainings and workshops.