Abstract
Early cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) in sudden cardiac arrest by bystanders prior to the arrival of emergency medical services can profoundly improve victim's chances of survival if done correctly. Our study sought to evaluate the knowledge around cardiopulmonary resuscitation seen in non-healthcare providers in the Eastern Region, Saudi Arabia. This is a cross-sectional, online-questioner based study conducted between Aug and Sept 2021. The questions explored overall BLS knowledge and previous experiences with cardiac arrests. Our study included 487 participants, 51.3% of the participants had received BLS training, but only 43.1% had adequate BLS knowledge. Regarding the attitude, 11.9% of participants previously witnessed a sudden death, 15% of them performed CPR, and 39.7% told someone to get help. The most common concern preventing percipients from performing CPR was fear of making mistakes (74.7%). Our participants had a better overall BLS knowledge than people in other regions. Notably, 40.9% of our participants incorrectly thought that the compression-to-rescue breath ratio was 5:2, which underlines the need to implement mandatory BLS courses for the general population to maximize survival in out-of-hospital cardiac arrest.