Basic Life Support (BLS): Knowledge, Attitude and Practice Among Health Care Providers
Abstract
Basic life support (BLS), a key component of the chain of survival helps to decrease disease condition and increases the rate of hospital discharge. Adequate awareness of basic life support (BLS) and diseased condition is an important global issue to ensure that individuals can provide necessary life-saving care in emergency situations. It is an integral part of emergency resuscitative care that aims to retain sufficient ventilation and circulation until the cause of the any case is detected and eliminated. It is possible to sustain life in patients whose life has been in danger. This period of temporary support is effective in sustaining life until specific lifesaving could be carried out. BLS course is gaining acceptance worldwide as important lifesaving means within 3-5min of patient collapse in and out hospital. The life support can produce survival rates as high as 49-75%. Effective management of an emergency condition is ultimately the health care personnel’s responsibility. The lack of training and inability to cope with medical emergencies can lead to tragic consequences and legal complications. Therefore, health professionals like doctors and nurses who are directly involved in patient care must be well prepared to manage medical emergencies. Hence, BLS and high-quality lifesaving is an important tool until a medical emergency is treated definitely. This forms an integral link in patient care. Studies done in varied settings have reported that knowledge of BLS and resuscitation technique is lacking even in hospital areas where frequent ways of life savings take place and more emphasis is placed to develop medical skills; viz. the emergency, anesthesia and critical care. The attitude to performing medical skills was also poor in frequent lifesaving performer. Both the attitude to life saving and skills have been shown to improve with training and workshop.
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