The choice of population was deliberate. Students training to become teachers occupy a unique position in the public health landscape: they are future educators who can disseminate life-saving knowledge through schools and communities, multiplying the impact of any single training program. By assessing their preparedness, the researchers hoped to gauge the potential for a self-renewing generation of first responders in a country where sudden cardiac arrest remains one of the most urgent and under-recognized public health crises. The study, published in the Journal of Emergency and Disaster Medicine, was conducted between April and May 2024 using a convenience sample with a calculated minimum requirement of 128 participants, ultimately enrolling 134 students with no missing data.

Demographically, the cohort was dominated by 23-year-olds, who made up 41 percent of respondents, followed by 22-, 24-, and 25-year-olds. Slightly more than half of the participants, 56.7 percent, were male, and nearly two-thirds were postgraduate students. Data were collected through a structured, self-administered questionnaire covering demographic variables, CPR awareness, self-rated ability, prior training, and barriers to intervention. Researchers scored five domains: confidence in performing specific skills such as checking responsiveness, assessing breathing, delivering chest compressions, using an automated external defibrillator, and providing wound care; recognition of situations indicating CPR, including unconsciousness, drowning, burns, and choking; correct response actions; symptom recognition during resuscitation; and overall perceptions of CPR’s importance.

The psychometric properties of the instrument were examined in detail. The confidence domain showed strong internal consistency, with a Cronbach’s alpha of 0.808 across its five items, while the indication, support, and symptom recognition domains demonstrated moderate reliability suitable for exploratory research, with alphas of 0.640, 0.649, and 0.630 respectively. The perception domain, by contrast, showed low internal consistency at 0.201, prompting the authors to analyze those items individually and interpret them cautiously. The overall instrument achieved an acceptable alpha of 0.645. Descriptive statistics revealed that confidence was the most variable measure, ranging from 0 to 17 with a mean of 9.22 and a standard deviation of 3.70, while perception scores were the most tightly clustered.

Attitudes toward CPR were overwhelmingly positive. A striking 70.1 percent of participants considered first aid and CPR more important in light of recent health emergencies, and 71.6 percent strongly agreed with the importance of these skills overall. Yet actual exposure was limited: 20.1 percent had never witnessed a first aid or CPR event, only 9 percent had ever provided CPR, 40.3 percent reported lacking training, and 23.9 percent cited fear of infection as a deterrent. When asked why they might hesitate, 44 percent pointed to safety protocols, 25.4 percent to needed training modifications, and only 17.9 percent reported no hesitation at all. Confidence itself was uneven, with 29.1 percent very confident in performing CPR but 11.9 percent reporting no confidence at all in basic first aid.

The statistical core of the study produced its most important insight. One-way analysis of variance showed a significant relationship between exposure to real first aid or CPR events and total preparedness scores, with F equal to 3.466 and a p-value of 0.010. Students who had actually provided CPR scored dramatically higher, averaging 27.4 points against 20.4 for those with no prior exposure, a gap that dwarfed differences attributable to perception or self-reported barriers. Neither perceived impact of CPR on health emergencies nor reasons for hesitation showed significant score differences, suggesting that nothing substitutes for hands-on experience when it comes to building genuine readiness to act.

Gender emerged as a persistent fault line. Male students scored significantly higher than female students on overall CPR preparedness, with means of 23.8 versus 20.5 and a t-statistic of 3.319 with p equal to 0.002. Chi-square analysis reinforced the pattern, showing that 56.6 percent of males fell into the high-preparedness category compared with 36.2 percent of females, a difference that was statistically significant. In univariate logistic regression, sex was a significant predictor, with female students showing odds of high preparedness less than half those of their male counterparts. However, the association lost significance in the multivariable model, hinting that the disparity may stem from differences in training exposure and experience rather than inherent capability, echoing prior research showing that women often underestimate their skills despite performing comparably.

Age and training status also mattered. Participants aged 22 showed a disproportionate concentration in the low-preparedness group, and trained students were significantly more likely to demonstrate high preparedness, at 59.4 percent versus 35.4 percent for the untrained. Formal training showed a marginal positive association with high preparedness in the multivariable logistic regression, with an odds ratio of 2.21 and p equal to 0.051, while the overall model was statistically significant and passed the Hosmer–Lemeshow goodness-of-fit test. Notably, undergraduate students scored slightly higher than postgraduates, a marginally non-significant difference suggesting that academic progression alone does not translate into emergency readiness, and that practical skill-based education must be embedded deliberately within university life.

The barriers identified by the study extend beyond knowledge. Fear of causing harm, anxiety, and uncertainty have long been documented as psychological obstacles to bystander CPR, and the COVID-19 pandemic added infection risk to the calculus, particularly around mouth-to-mouth ventilation. International resuscitation bodies responded by promoting compression-only CPR and protective equipment, and evidence has since shown that trained laypersons can use automated external defibrillators safely and effectively within structured response systems. In India, cultural discomfort with physical contact with strangers and limited public awareness of the Good Samaritan law, which legally protects emergency helpers, compound the hesitation. The authors argue that training programs must therefore address emotional preparedness and confidence-building alongside technical instruction, using simulation-based learning and periodic refresher sessions to sustain competence over time.

The study’s authors conclude that universities should implement regular, hands-on CPR and first aid programs paired with targeted interventions to dismantle psychological barriers, with particular attention to groups reporting lower confidence. They envision Varanasi, with its massive student population, becoming a model city for bystander CPR readiness, generating scalable lessons for cardiac arrest response across urban and semi-urban India. The findings come with caveats: the cross-sectional design precludes causal claims, the convenience sample of education students from a single faculty limits generalizability, and self-reported questionnaires may not reflect actual CPR competency. Still, the central message is clear and actionable, aligning with expert calls to embed CPR and defibrillator training in schools and colleges nationwide. Communities with high bystander CPR rates see substantially better survival after out-of-hospital cardiac arrest, and young people, armed with practical experience rather than theory alone, are best positioned to become the life-saving bridge between collapse and definitive care.

Subject of Research: First aid and CPR confidence, training gaps, and preparedness among university students in Varanasi, India

Article Title: The state of first aid & cardio-pulmonary resuscitation: assessment of confidence, support, and perceptions in the wake of a health emergency among students of Banaras Hindu University, Varanasi

Article References: The state of first aid & cardio-pulmonary resuscitation: assessment of confidence, support, and perceptions in the wake of a health emergency among students of Banaras Hindu University, Varanasi. (n.d.). https://doi.org/10.1007/s44467-026-00016-x

Image Credits: AI Generated

DOI: 10.1007/s44467-026-00016-x

Keywords: cardiopulmonary resuscitation, first aid, bystander CPR, cardiac arrest, health emergency preparedness, CPR training, university students, gender disparity, basic life support, COVID-19, India, Banaras Hindu University

The rationale for studying resuscitation readiness in dental settings is more compelling than it might first appear. Cardiovascular disease remains the leading cause of death in Iran, accounting for nearly half of all fatalities, with ischemic heart disease alone responsible for roughly a quarter of deaths. Although medical emergencies in dental clinics are uncommon, they do occur, sometimes among patients, sometimes among dentists and staff, and sometimes among accompanying companions. Previous research has quantified the risk: in the United States, the annual incidence of cardiac arrest in medical and dental practices has been estimated to range between 0.008 and 1 per 133 practitioners, while the United Kingdom reports an incidence of 0.002 per dentist per year. In Germany, 57 percent of dentists report encountering at least three medical emergencies annually. These figures, while modest, underscore a simple truth: dental offices are healthcare environments, and emergencies can and do happen there.

What distinguishes the new study from earlier surveys is its scope. Most prior investigations focused exclusively on dentists, overlooking the assistants and office secretaries who might be the first to recognize a collapse, call for help, or begin chest compressions. Because all members of a dental team are healthcare providers who should be capable of performing basic life support, the researchers designed a cross-sectional survey covering the entire team. Between October 2021 and April 2022, they sampled clinics and offices across Isfahan, the largest city in central Iran, using stratified simple random sampling that divided practices by type, public versus private, and by geographic district, then selected clinics at random within each stratum to minimize selection bias.

The instrument itself was built for rigor. A 27-item structured questionnaire was developed by emergency medicine faculty, each with more than a decade of experience running CPR workshops, and aligned with the American Heart Association’s 2020 guidelines. It covered three domains: demographic information, nine items of theoretical and practical CPR knowledge, and fourteen items on attitude and experience, including prior exposure to cardiac arrest, workshop participation, and willingness to pursue future training. A pilot study of 20 dentists, excluded from the main analysis, confirmed clarity and reliability, with Cronbach’s alpha values of 0.82 for the knowledge domain and 0.79 for the attitude domain, both within the accepted range for psychometric consistency. Ethical approval came from Isfahan University of Medical Sciences, and written informed consent was obtained from every participant.

The findings were stark. Of 201 valid responses, including 101 dentists representing an 81 percent response rate among those approached, the median CPR knowledge score was just 3 out of a possible 9, with a mean of 2.61 and a standard deviation of 1.75, and the distribution of scores was positively skewed, clustering heavily at the low end. Participants had a mean age of 31.75 years, and 62.2 percent were female. Only five participants, 2.5 percent of the entire sample, had ever encountered a cardiac arrest in dental practice, and just eleven individuals, 5.5 percent, reported having personally performed CPR. Perhaps most striking, only 12.9 percent had attended a CPR workshop in the previous two years, and a mere 13.4 percent considered themselves competent to perform resuscitation at all.

Buried within the data was a counterintuitive and potentially important pattern: knowledge declined with age and experience. The analysis revealed a significant negative correlation between dentists’ age and CPR knowledge scores (r = −0.184, P = 0.009) and between years of professional experience and knowledge (r = −0.231, P = 0.020). This mirrors a finding from Kuwait, where younger dentists and those with fewer than ten years of experience outperformed their senior colleagues, but it contradicts studies from India and among oral and maxillofacial surgeons in which experienced practitioners knew more. The authors propose a plausible explanation: most participants in the current study had not received recent refresher training, so whatever knowledge older dentists once acquired has simply eroded. They also caution that recency of formal education may confound the relationship, since younger graduates may have been trained under more current guidelines, and they recommend that future studies control for graduation year and timing of the last CPR course.

The strongest positive signal in the data came from training itself. Dentists who had participated in CPR workshops within the past two years scored significantly higher on the knowledge assessment than those who had not (P = 0.007), a result consistent with findings from Iran and Kuwait, and one that aligns with the well-documented kinetics of skill decay: theoretical knowledge declines markedly within about 12 months, and practical competence deteriorates substantially after 18 months without reinforcement. Encouragingly, the appetite for remediation is already there. A striking 84.1 percent of respondents said they wanted to attend future CPR workshops, and among dentists specifically the figure exceeded 88 percent. Gender, meanwhile, made no measurable difference in knowledge scores (P = 0.124).

The study’s limitations are acknowledged candidly by its authors. Competence was measured only through a self-administered questionnaire, capturing theoretical knowledge rather than hands-on skill, and no simulation-based practical testing was performed. The cross-sectional design, the single-city setting, and the sample of 201 participants restrict causal inference and generalizability, and self-reported data are always vulnerable to recall and social desirability bias. Non-response was analyzed as a potential source of bias and appeared minimal, with no significant differences between respondents and the 19 percent who declined, most commonly citing lack of time or lack of interest. Still, the convergence of these findings with an international literature spanning Brazil, India, Turkey, Kuwait, and earlier Iranian surveys, which found, for example, that only 37 percent of Iranian dentists in a 2007 study possessed adequate CPR knowledge, strengthens the conclusion that preparedness deficits in dentistry are systemic rather than local.

The implications reach beyond clinical performance into patient safety and law. Previous reports have documented deaths from cardiopulmonary arrest occurring in dental settings, and inadequate resuscitation capability carries potential legal consequences for practitioners, alongside the more intangible costs of insecurity among dental teams and eroded patient trust. The authors argue that a single CPR course, however well taught, is not enough, and they call for mandatory, periodic CPR training woven into both undergraduate dental curricula and continuing professional education, explicitly extending the requirement beyond dentists to assistants and office staff. Given the strong expressed willingness of the workforce to train, they note, structured recurrent programs are not only medically necessary but entirely feasible. In a field where minutes decide survival, the study’s central message is hard to ignore: readiness must be renewed, not assumed, and the whole dental team, not just the person holding the drill, must be ready to act.

Subject of Research: Knowledge and attitudes toward cardiopulmonary resuscitation among dental teams in Isfahan, Iran

Article Title: Life-saving skills in dentistry: knowledge and attitude toward cardiopulmonary resuscitation among dental teams

Article References: Heydari, F., Nasr Isfahani, M., Masoumi, B., Esmailian, M., Khosravi, H., & Nasr-Esfahani, M. (2026). Life-saving skills in dentistry: knowledge and attitude toward cardiopulmonary resuscitation among dental teams. Journal of Emergency and Disaster Medicine, 2(1), Article 15. https://doi.org/10.1007/s44467-026-00018-9

Image Credits: AI Generated

DOI: 10.1007/s44467-026-00018-9

Keywords: cardiopulmonary resuscitation, CPR, basic life support, dentistry, dental teams, cardiac arrest, emergency preparedness, medical emergencies, dental education, Iran, American Heart Association guidelines, continuing professional development