Basic Life Support: A Call for Reevaluation by Nurse Educators

FORMAL EVALUATION OF THE STUDENT'S NURSING SKILLS IS FUNDAMENTAL TO THE UNDERGRADUATE NURSING CURRICULUM. An exception is basic life support (BLS) skills. The fact that these skills elude formal evaluation is alarming as research demonstrates that nursing students perform BLS skills poorly (Madden, 2006; Moule & Knight, 1997). This author urges that schools of nursing incorporate BLS skill evaluation into the undergraduate curriculum. Typically, schools of nursing require that students certify in BLS, but certification only validates the student's knowledge at one point in time. Following certification, a period of skill and knowledge deterioration takes place that Alspach (2005) attributes to the inability of the brain to form a procedural memory of the task. Students may complete the nursing program with the false notion that they are still competent in BLS. Formal skill evaluation is the accurate appraisal of a skill using techniques that have been tested for reliability and validity. Without formal evaluation of BLS, lack of competence may go unnoticed, and minimal learning may take place. As a nursing student, I had first-hand experience with the deterioration of skills and knowledge. Prior to joining the emergency response team (ERT), I had been through the certification process and considered myself an expert in BLS. However, following formal evaluation by the ERT team, my areas of deficiency were clearly apparent. I was able to remedy my errors and learn from my mistakes. I also worked as a peer mentor in my school's nursing laboratory for the last two years of the nursing program and observed students practicing other nursing skills, but never their BLS skills. As a student and mentor, I can attest that students will not practice a skill unless they know they cannot perform it correctly, or unless the skill is to be evaluated. Since the evaluation of BLS skills is not incorporated into the curriculum and appears to be inconsequential, students do not spend time fine-tuning these skills. But Niemi- Murola, Makinen, and Castren (2007) studied nursing and medical students' attitudes toward cardiopulmonary resuscitation and current practice guidelines and reported that nursing students would have liked to learn more BLS in their prelicensure education. Simulation and monitoring feedback devices are useful tools for maintaining BLS competency. The use of such devices may eliminate questions such as "how hard do I push?" and "how fast should I go?" Ackermann (2007) found that nursing students' BLS performance in a mock cardiac arrest scenario using high-fidelity simulation manikins was significantly better than the performance of a control group trained using standard American Heart Association training. …