AIM

To conduct a systematic review evaluating improvement in team and leadership performance and resuscitation outcomes after such a training of healthcare providers during advanced life support (ALS) courses.

METHODS

This systematic review asked the question of whether students taking structured and standardised ALS courses in an educational setting which include specific leadership or team training, compared to no such specific training in these courses, improves patient survival, skill performance in actual resuscitations, skill performance at 3-15 months (patient tasks, teamwork, leadership), skill performance at course conclusion (patient tasks, teamwork, leadership), or cognitive knowledge PubMed, Embase and the Cochrane database were searched until April 2020. Screening of articles, analysis of risk of bias, outcomes and quality assessment were performed according to the Grading of Recommendations Assessment, Development and Evaluation methodology. Only studies with abstracts in English were included.

RESULTS

14 non-randomised studies and 17 randomised controlled trials, both in adults and children, and seven studies involving patients were included in this systematic review. No randomised controlled trials but three observational studies of team and leadership training showed improvement in the critical outcome of "patient survival". However, they suffered from risk of bias (indirectness and imprecision). The included studies reported many different methods to teach leadership skills and team behaviour.

CONCLUSION

This systematic review found very low certainty evidence that team and leadership training as part of ALS courses improved patient outcome. This supports the inclusion of team and leadership training in ALS courses for healthcare providers.