Why Feedback Training is Important

When you think about CPR training, your mind might naturally go towards the specialized manikins that are crucial to medical training. These training instruments are meant to replicate the human body and allow for students to learn how to perform CPR without risking the injury of a volunteer. However, there is a crucial difference between a living person and one of the manikins: feedback. This is where feedback training and their respective manikins come into place.

Proven Method of Increasing CPR Skill Acquisition and Retention — It’s reasonable to question if these advanced manikins actually improve a student’s ability to perform various medical techniques. Hence why J Yeung and his colleges wrote a paper on the use of CPR feedback and prompt devices in 2009. In their research, they performed thirty-two studies with various students and CPR feedback and prompt devices. They discovered a 30% increase in the number of students that were able to acquire and retain their skills during the training. That’s no small number! If instructing more students is the goal, then any CPR training course would be best off with a feedback manikin.

Immediate Feedback in Quality of Performance — Practicing and training on a manikin helps teach proper form and methods for various medical techniques, not least of which being CPR. However, it should go without saying that a rubber manikin is quite different compared to a living human being. A manikin, normally, doesn’t give any signs whether or not the CPR is being performed successfully. The individual's technique can be subtly wrong and only a keen and alert instructor would be able to notice. Hence, feedback manikins offer a solution. Now instructors and students will have immediate feedback on whether or not the technique is being performed correctly.

American Heart Association Requirement In 2019, the American Heart Association required all adult CPR training courses to incorporate feedback and prompt manikins into their courses. In time, this requirement will be extended towards child and infant manikins as well. While some are hesitant to adopt the machines due to the additional cost, they have proven to be well worth the investment in both retention and durability.

Photo taken by: Martin Splitt