Feasibility of a school-based cardiopulmonary resuscitation educational programme incorporating microlearning and gamification in primary school children: a prospective observational study

Abstract Cardiorespiratory arrest (CRA) is a priority public health problem whose survival depends largely on the early action of the community as the first link in the life-saving systems (chain of survival). In this context, international organisations such as the European Resuscitation Council (ERC) promote early training in basic life support (BLS) through initiatives such as Kids Save Lives, integrating cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) education into community-based education strategies. The study, conducted within the framework of the CORE-LIFE research project, evaluated the feasibility of a school-based CPR educational intervention incorporating microlearning and gamification and assessed the delayed performance of selected basic CPR procedural components in a sample of 416 primary school students. The intervention consisted of a short, practical and sequential didactic unit, aligned with the ERC recommendations, followed by a delayed assessment conducted four months after the intervention. The results showed significant differences between grades in the correct execution of the overall CPR sequence ( p < 0.001). Four months after training, students demonstrated varying levels of performance across the assessed CPR procedural components. In addition, 95.0% of the 259 available family questionnaires reported positively on the transmission of CPR-related content to the family environment; these exploratory self-reported data suggest perceived intrafamilial dissemination but do not provide evidence of learning or CPR skill acquisition among family members. The intervention was successfully implemented across all six primary school grades, with a high proportion of non-excluded participants completing the four-month assessment. As no pre-specified feasibility criteria were established, these findings should be interpreted as descriptive indicators of implementation rather than as evidence that formal feasibility thresholds were met. However, the absence of a comparison group precludes attributing the observed outcomes to either instructional strategy.