ABSTRACT
Introduction: The annual incidence of out of hospital cardiac arrest in Europe is between 67 to 170 per 100,000 inhabitants1. Basic Life Support (BLS) with Automated External Defibrillation (AED) are techniques with undoubted benefit2. Still, the use of AEDs remains low in Europe (average 28%)1. Training in BLS with AED is mandatory for health care professionals. Within the scope of the curriculum reform of the Integrated Master of Medicine (IMM), an Introduction to Medicine unit was created, which includes a BLS with AED course.We assessed medical students rating of this course. Material and methods: Assessment of satisfaction of the certified Portuguese Resuscitation Council/European Resuscitation Council BLS and AED course3 to first year students of the IMM at Instituto de Ciências Biomédicas Abel Salazar. School of Medicine and Biomedical Sciences, Porto, Portugal, since 2018 to 2021. Twelve questions regarding four areas, BLS, AED, Recovery position (RP) and Foreign body airway obstruction (FBAO), were graded from 0 = none to 5 = maximum. Results: In total, 38 courses were held, attended by 719 students. The global assessment was maximum on most questions. This trend was most pronounced in issues relating to the BLS (mean of 96,6% for grade 5) and AED (mean of 96,5% for grade 5). The relevance of the content in the four different areas was also very high (range 96,2 to 99,3%). In contrast, the RP (mean of 92,9% for grade 5) and FBAO (mean of 90,4% for grade 5) training ratings were the lowest, yet still quite high. The training conditions, either by limitations imposed by COVID, or by the training models, may have contributed to the less favourable results. Conclusions: Training in BLS and AED is confirmed as a very relevant practice for 1st year medical students. Improvement in its practical implementation may promote greater satisfaction and learning.