Diversity of CPR manikins for basic life support education: use of manikin sex, race and body shape - a scoping review

BACKGROUND: Cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) manikins typically appear white, lean and male. However, internationally, this does not represent the overall population or those who are at greatest risk of cardiac arrest. Diverse demographic groups including people of colour, women and obese people are known to be less likely to receive bystander CPR, public access defibrillation and suffer less favourable outcomes. It is plausible that failure to represent women, racially diverse and non-lean manikins can contribute to poor clinical outcomes in these populations. The aim of this scoping review was to summarise the current evidence for adaptations of manikins used for layperson Basic Life Support (BLS) training.

METHODS: We searched MEDLINE, Embase, PsycINFO, CINAHL, ERIC, Web of Science, Infromit, Scopus and Cochrane Central Register of Controlled Trials to identify all empirical studies describing or evaluating CPR manikin diversity. Data on participant characteristics, manikin adaptations, study design, and key findings of included studies describing or evaluating CPR manikin diversity were extracted.

RESULTS: Initially, 2719 studies were identified, and 15 studies were finally included and were grouped into (1) studies analysing adaptions of 'standard' manikins used in training (n=11) and (2) studies evaluating CPR manikin diversity used for online learning and on social media (n=4). Six of the studies analysing different adaptations reported the influence of the manikins' sex on comfort in performing CPR, quality of chest compression, automated external defibrillator use and removing clothes; four the effects of obese manikins; and one an ethnically diverse manikin. Seven of the studies used do-it-yourself adaptions. Racial and gender diversity of CPR manikins found in educational videos was limited, with only 5% of educational videos featuring non-white manikins and 1% featuring female manikins.

CONCLUSION: Adaptations of manikins used for BLS CPR training for laypersons still do not represent the diversity of communities most people are living in, internationally. There are hints that using diverse racial manikins has the potential to improve engagement in CPR training. Reported barriers hindering the use of adapted manikins were high costs and availability of these manikins.