From the 39 radiographers who participated in this study,
19 of the them work in the Hospital A (48.7%) and 20 in the Hospital B (51.3%).
Radiographers were asked about how many courses or training courses of BLS had participated as professionals and it was observed that 6 of them never attended any course /training related to BLS (Fig. 1).
20 radiographers do not have the BLS course validated.
So,
only 13 radiographers are qualified to perform BLS (Fig. 2).
Concerning the questions related to Basic Life Support (questions 1 to 8),
it was observed that none of the radiographers correctly answered to all this questions.
6 radiographers correctly answered to a total of six questions,
7 answered correctly to five questions and 15 answered correctly to four questions.
So,
only 38.5% (13 radiographers) answered correctly more than four questions (Table 1).
Observing each question of the questionnaire,
it can be observed that only 3 of the 8 SBL-related questions were incorrectly answered by the majority of the radiographers.
All the other questions were correctly answered by the majority of them as the following: Q1 = 76.9%,
Q3=56,5&,
Q4 22 = 56.4%,
Q6 = 97.4% and Q7 = 64.1%.
So,
56,5% of the radiographers know how to check for pulse timing and 56,4% know the most appropriate rate of CPR for an adult (chest compressions and breaths).
97,4% correctly indicated the maneuver that can be used to open the airway.
Through the Mann-Whitney test,
no significant statistically differences were observed between Hospital A and B regarding all the questions under study.
Through the Spearman rho correlation test,
it was verified that the professional experience have a very high positive correlation with the fact that radiographers has attended some discipline/subjet related to BLS (rho = 0.473,
p = 0.002) and low positive correlation with the question about the most appropriate rate of CPR for an adult (rho = 0.419,
p = 0.008) and the question about know how to check for pulse timing (rho = 0.473,
p = 0.002).
At the end of the questionnaire,
radiographers were asked if they felt confident to perform BLS if necessary,
and 22 of them (56.4%) responded that they felt confident.
When correlating this question with the question "recommended sequence in case of PCR",
only 5 of these 22 (22.7%) correctly answered to this question.
The obtained results in this study are in line with those obtained by Alam et al (2014) in which Radiographers and Radiologists in Pakistan do not have sufficient knowledge about BLS and are unable to act in the presence of a cardiorespiratory arrest,
and suggests practical and refresher courses,
which should be compulsory in the workplace,
in order to obtain the desired level of patient safety (3).