Augmented Reality Learning Environment for Cardiopulmonary Resuscitation Training: An Observational Study (Preprint)

Abstract

Moving towards a next generation world, the urge to find a fitting education system is inevitable. In the direction of a better education system, undeniably the crucial fields such as emergency and first aid education that involves public health, requires higher attention. Hence, the adaptation of relevant teaching methods and at the same time increasing the efficiency of training procedures gain more importance than ever.

This paper aims to present and evaluate a self-directed cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) training system that has the potential to be an alternative to traditional CPR teaching sessions.

To this end, a before-and-after study was designed. Data of 43 participants were evaluated in this study. The participants were randomly divided into two groups; While the test group (n=22) used the proposed Augmented Reality (AR) based CPR tutorial and training system, the control group (n=21) went through a traditional CPR teaching session.

The overall effective CPR performance of test group significantly increased (P < .001) after teaching session with the proposed AR system. While the mean of participant’s effective CPR performance was 23.3% ± 27.2% before the teaching session, it was improved to 61.3% ± 27.4% after training with the AR system. Moreover, this study demonstrated that the proposed system helped to achieve higher effective CPR rates comparing to the traditional teaching. Even though both groups had no significant difference (P = .60) in doing effective CPR before teaching session, the test group performed significantly better than control group after teaching session (P = .02).

This study showed the potential of AR based CPR tutorial and training system as an alternative to traditional teaching method. Not only was this method found to be feasible for the intended purpose but it also proved to be more effective way to teach and train CPR to achieve effective performance. With advantages that it offers, eyewear AR technology is promising to build foundations of next generation education.