https://doi.org/10.7322/abcshs.45.2020.1276 Page 1 of 9 Knowledge of academics and health professionals on Basic Life Support Alan Carlos Nery dos Santos 1,2 , Jefferson Petto 2 , Ramon Martins Barbosa 1 , Renata Ferreira de Moura 1 , Gabriela Nery dos Santos 3 , Ana Marice Teixeira Ladeia 2 1 Grupo de Pesquisa Ciências da Saúde em Fisioterapia, Universidade Salvador (UNIFACS) – Feira de Santana (BA), Brasil 2 Escola Bahiana de Medicina e Saúde Pública (EBMSP) – Salvador (BA), Brasil 3 Centro Universitário Estácio da Bahia (ESTÁCIO) – Salvador (BA), Brasil How to cite this article: Santos et al. Knowledge of academics and health professionals on Basic Life Support. ABCS Health Sci. 2020;45:1276. https://doi. org/10.7322/abcshs.45.2020.1276 Received: Jul 15, 2019 Revised: Dec 08, 2019 Approved: Dec 12, 2019 Corresponding author: Alan Carlos Nery dos Santos - Universidade Salvador – Avenida Getúlio Vargas, 2.734 – Parque Getúlio Vargas – CEP: 44075-525 – Feira de Santana (BA), Brasil – E-mail: allannery.santos@hotmail.com Declaration of interests: nothing to declare REVIEW ARTICLE Arquivos Brasileiros de Ciências da Saúde A BC S A BCS HEALTH SCIENCES ABSTRACT Introduction: Inadequate assessment and lack of knowledge of the applicable procedures in emergencies are factors that can result in greater population morbidity and mortality. Objective: To systematically review studies in the national literature on the knowledge of academics and health professionals in basic life support and cardiorespiratory arrest. Methods: Systematic review of studies published in journals indexed in SciELO and LILACS databases. Search terms: “Cardiopulmonary Resuscitation”, “Basic Life Support”, “Cardiac Arrest”, “Health Education” and “Knowledge”. Complete articles published until December 2018 were included. Tey analyzed the knowledge of students and/or graduated health professionals about basic life support and its procedures, as well as teaching strategies. Studies with undergraduate health professionals and/or with hospital conduct and/or advanced life support were excluded. Results: Searches identifed 60 articles, 16 of which were included. Of these, eleven were observational and fve were intervention studies. Te observational studies identifed the lack of knowledge of 1,178 academics and 335 professionals about the identifcation of cardiorespiratory arrest, the sequence of basic life support, ventilation/compression ratio, interruption of compressions and use of the automatic external defbrillator. Te intervention studies, involving 24 students and 189 professionals, indicated that active learning strategies can improve knowledge. Conclusion: Results indicate that students and graduated health professionals have limitations in their knowledge about the cardiopulmonary arrest and basic life support, which may result in great damage and short survival to emergency patients. Keywords: knowledge; cardiopulmonary resuscitation; heart arrest; life support care. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License © 2020 Santos et al. INTRODUCTION Cardiovascular diseases (CVD) are one of the most important groups of causes of mor- bidity and mortality in the Brazilian population 1,2 . Tey are responsible for a high number of deaths in adults over the age of 301. Associated with CVD, Cardiorespiratory Arrest (CRA) is one of the most lethal public health problems 1,3 . In addition, an interesting survey showed that in Brazil, there are approximately 200,000 cases of CRA. Of these, more than half happen outside the hospital environment, a fact that makes basic life support (BLS) fundamental 1 . BLS is a set of procedures and primary actions adopted to save lives 1,3 . According to the I Cardiopulmonary Resuscitation and Cardiovascular Emergency Care Guideline