The effect of an advanced cardiac life support course on advanced cardiac life support ability.

Thousands of health care providers spend time, money, and energy each year taking the AHA-sponsored ACLS courses, and ACLS-certified health care providers are frequently given greater job responsibility than other health care providers in the same setting. The purpose of this study was to determine the effect of an ACLS course on the ability of health care providers to perform ACLS in a simulated situation. A nonequivalent control group design was used. The sample consisted of 76 health care providers whose job responsibilities included ACLS. The Mega-Code skill station from the ACLS course was used to evaluate ACLS performance. Chi-square analyses showed a significant (p less than 0.05) difference in the posttest pass/fail results of the two groups and a significant (p less than 0.05) difference in the changes from pretest to posttest of the two groups. The research hypotheses were supported, and the researches concluded that the course had a positive effect on the subjects' ACLS ability.