IJCS | Volume 33, Nº2, March / April 2020

154 Figure 2 - Median number of correct answers in the questionnaire of groups A and B. Group A was subdivided into two according to the year of the course: (i) volunteers who took ACLS training in 2016; (ii) volunteers who took ACLS training before 2016. No significant difference was found in the number of correct answers in the subgroups, both of which reached a median higher than group B. Number of right questions Table 1 - Number of correct answers of different groups evaluated Scores Group A n = 20 Group B n = 14 p value ** 25% quartile 3.00 2.00 NA Median 4.00 3.00 0.06 75% quartile 5.00 4.00 NA ≥ 3/5* 18.00 8.00 0.04 (*) At least three scores on five questions answered in the questionnaire; (**) The difference between medians was evaluated by Mann-Whitney test, and the difference between the number of correct answers using Fisher's test. In bold, statistically significant (< 0.05). NA: not applicable. Catolino & Knofholz Medical behavior before and after advanced cardiac life support (ACLS) course Int J Cardiovasc Sci. 2020; 33(2):151-157 Original Article It was observed that group A scored at least 3 of the 5 questions of the questionnaire, whereas group B showed inferior performance, which suggests that physicians who took the course have a chance to show better performance in the questionnaire than those who never did. The aim of this study was also to investigate whether the time since the ACLS course to the date of the questionnaire could affect the performance of volunteers. For this purpose, Group A was subdivided into two parts: volunteers who took ACLS training in 2016 and volunteers who had taken training previously. It was decided to organize the volunteers in this manner because the last modification of the guidelines was published in 2015 by the American Heart Association (AHA). No significant difference was observed between the groups, so the ACLS course allowed a large number of correct answers regardless of the year of training (p = 0.52). Even physicians who were trained with outdated guidelines were able to achieve performance similar to that of newly trained practitioners — still better than the group that never trained (p = 0.04). It is suggested that physicians trained under old protocols were able to update CPR concepts. Besides that, regardless of the year of training, knowledge retention was reflected by the better performance in the questionnaire. It is assumed that the effectiveness of the course was able to promote significant changes in the approach of professionals trained on CPR, resulting in better medical care and longer survival of patients under CRP. It is hoped that this analysis may foster the importance of training and prior experience with real situations regarding the effectiveness in resuscitation of patients in cardiorespiratory arrest. Thus, it is possible to recognize the effectiveness of theACLS course in promoting better performance of the