Abstract
External chest compressions are often ineffective for patients arresting after cardiac surgery, for whom emergency resternotomy may be required. A single-blinded randomized controlled trial (RCT) was performed, with participants being randomized to a virtual reality (VR) Cardiac Surgical Unit Advanced Life Support (CSU-ALS) simulator training arm or a conventional classroom CSU-ALS training arm. Twenty-eight cardiothoracic surgery (CTS) residents were included and subsequently assessed in a moulage scenario in groups of two, either participating as a leader or surgeon. The primary binary outcomes were two time targets: (1) delivering three stacked shocks within 1 min and (2) resternotomy within 5 min. Secondary outcomes were the number of protocol mistakes made and a questionnaire after the VR simulator. The conventional training group administered stacked shocks within 1 min in 43% (n = 6) of cases, and none in the VR group reached this target, missing it by an average of 25 s. The resternotomy time target was reached in 100% of the cases (n = 14) in the conventional training group and in 83% of the cases (n = 10) in the VR group. The VR group made 11 mistakes in total versus 15 for those who underwent conventional training. Participants reported that the VR simulator was useful and easy to use. The results show that the VR simulator can provide adequate CSU-ALS training. Moreover, VR training results in fewer mistakes suggesting that repetitive practice in an immersive environment improves skills.
Original language | English |
---|---|
Article number | 67 |
Journal | Journal of Cardiovascular Development and Disease |
Volume | 10 |
Issue number | 2 |
DOIs | |
Publication status | Published - 4 Feb 2023 |
Bibliographical note
Funding Information:This research and software development is funded by an Erasmus+ grant number 2022-1-NL01-KA220-HED-000087770. The CSU-ALS training day was facilitated in part by funding or equipment provisions from Getinge (Göteborg, Sweden), Mölnycke (Göteborg, Sweden), and QT Time (Houten, The Netherlands). The training day was organized in cooperation with the Dutch association of thoracic surgeons (NVT) juniorkamer committee. These sponsors had no role in the design and conduct of the study, or the collection, management, analysis, and interpretation of the data. They did not prepare, review, or approve this manuscript, and had no role in the decision to submit the manuscript for publication.
Publisher Copyright:
© 2023 by the authors.