Knowledge and practice of adult cardiopulmonary resuscitation among nurses in the Emergency Department of a tertiary hospital in Ghana

Cardiopulmonary Resuscitation (CPR) is an important emergency care skill for all healthcare professionals. The success of CPR is determined by multiple patient and healthcare professional factors, such as CPR training and adhering to the guidelines for managing sudden cardiac arrest. Nurses have a high chance of identifying a patient in sudden cardiac arrest and initiating CPR for a better health outcome. This study assessed the knowledge and practice of adult CPR among nurses at the Emergency Department (ED) of a tertiary Hospital in Ghana. A quantitative cross-sectional study was employed, where 132 nurses were randomly selected and interviewed from June 2020 to November 2020. Data was collected by trained research assistants with a structured questionnaire and analysed with STATA Version 16.0 Majority ( n = 117, 86.64%) of the respondents could identify a patient in sudden cardiac arrest, and 94.70% ( n = 125) had performed CPR at least once within the last two years. Availability of guidelines and protocol based on the AHA guidelines for managing sudden cardiac arrest ( p = 0.020) and good CPR practice ( p = 0.044) were associated with good knowledge of CPR in this study. Our study found respondents generally had good knowledge and good practice of CPR. Making AHA guidelines available to ED nurses for managing sudden cardiac arrest was significantly associated with good knowledge of CPR. Therefore, regular CPR training and providing AHA guidelines for managing sudden cardiac arrest are recommended to increase the level of knowledge of adult CPR.