Background: Knowing how to respond effectively to an acutely deteriorating patient is a National Safety and Quality Health Service Standard and a requirement for nurse registration with the Australian Health Practitioner Regulatory Authority. Literature has highlighted that a lack of knowledge, skills and confidence in healthcare professionals to perform basic life support may be a contributing factor to the high mortality and morbidity rates associated with cardiac arrest in the hospital setting.
Aim: To explore first-year nursing students' knowledge and confidence to perform basic life support according to the Australian Resuscitation Council guidelines before and after watching an online video lecture.
Method: A quantitative quasi-experimental pre- and post-test design to measure changes, if any, in first-year nursing students' knowledge and confidence to perform basic life support at an Australian university in 2021.
Findings: The collected data were analysed using Stata, a statistical software for data sciences. Participants' mean knowledge score increased from 9.3 (SD: 2.5) in the pre-test to 13.9 (SD: 3) (p < 0.001) in the post-test (maximum possible score: 19). Participants' mean confidence score increased from 17.0 (SD: 6.3) in the pre-test to 24.5 (SD: 4.4) (p < 0.001) in the post-test (maximum possible score: 30; p < 0.001).
Discussion: The most significant improvement in knowledge was observed in chest compression rate, breathing/ ventilation and checking patient response. The study found that the video lecture is an effective teaching method to increase students' confidence to perform basic life support.
Conclusion: An online video-recorded lecture can increase undergraduate student nurses' knowledge and confidence to perform basic life support. This is one educational strategy that universities can use to improve students' knowledge and confidence to perform this essential skill for practice.
Keywords: basic life support; cardiopulmonary resuscitation; online video lecture; undergraduate nursing students.