The use of realistic simulation as a basic support teaching strategy for high school students: report on extension activities in the Brazilian Amazon

Introduction: Report experience using realistic simulation as a basic life support teaching strategy for high school students. Method: Report of an extension activity, linked to the extension project “Realistic Simulation in Urgency and Emergency” of the Universidade da Amazonia (UNAMA), held from April 5 to June 29, 2018, with students from public and middle schools. Belém Metropolitan Region, State of Pará, Brazil. Results: In total, five educational interventions were carried out, using as a teaching strategy the realistic simulation of basic life support maneuvers. 500 students from 1st to 3rd year of high school participated in the educational activity. They were taught to perform cardiopulmonary resuscitation maneuvers, with an emphasis on basic life support for lay people under the assumptions of resuscitation science proposed by the American Heart Association, Guideline 2015. Participants expressed satisfaction and interest in the activity and methodology used. All actively participated in the practice stations, with demonstration of the technique on the dummy and Automatic External Defibrillator (AED) simulator, as well as showing interest in clarifying their doubts on the subject in the debriefing stage. Conclusion: We conclude that there was interest from the students, and such interest is attributed to the active methodology used. Given this, it is recommended that activities such as this should be encouraged more strongly in the various contexts of society, as it is believed to be an educational action with significant potential to save lives and reduce mortality and avoidable sequelae in cardiac arrest.