Virtual reality training in cardiopulmonary resuscitation in schools

Abstract

UK average survival from Out of Hospital Cardiac Arrest (OHCA) survival is around 8.6%, which is significantly lower than other high performing countries with survival rates of over 20%. A cardiac arrest victim is 2–4 times more likely to survive OHCA with bystander CPR provision. Mandatory Teaching CPR to children in school is acknowledged to be the most effective way to reach the entire population and improving the bystander CPR rate and is endorsed by the World Health Organization (WHO) “Kids Save Lives” statement. Despite this, Wales is yet to follow other home nations by including CPR training as a mandatory within the school’s curriculum.

In this paper, we explore the role of teaching CPR to schoolchildren and report on the development by Computer scientists at the University of Chester and the Welsh Ambulance Services NHS Trust (WAST) of VCPR, a virtual environment to help teach the procedure. VCPR was developed in three stages: identifying requirements and specifications; development of a prototype; and management—development of software, further funding and exploring opportunities for commercialisation. We describe the opportunities in Wales to skill up the whole population over time in CPR and present our Virtual reality (VR) technology is emerging as a powerful for teaching CPR in schools.