Background and aims Although appropriate guidelines for paediatric basic life support (pBLS) are available (European Resuscitation Council (ERC) Guidelines, 2010) and many health care professionals follow pBLS courses, a reliable and valid scoring tool for pBLS examination is still lacking. We endeavoured to develop such a scoring instrument.

Methods Based on the ERC algorithm for pBLS and the scoring system for BLS in adults developed by Berden et al. (Resuscitation, 1992), we composed a scoring tool with content validity. Consensus on this scoring tool was reached within an expert panel to endow it with face validity. We used our tool for the pBLS examinations of 187 medical interns that just completed a pBLS course. All examinees were scored on-site and on video. Eighty video-recorded examinations were scored a second time by the same researcher after several months. An independent researcher also scored these 80 videos. Finally, 20 skilled pBLS course instructors were scored with our tool.

Results Thirty examinations were excluded, because videos were of insufficient quality or interns declined consent. Correlation between on-site and video-based scores was low. Less interns passed their pBLS examination based on on-site scores. Scoring was most divergent regarding the items chin lift, signs of life, leaning and tidal volume. When looking at the videos, intra-observer and inter-observer reliability were good. The percentage of pass scores was considerably higher in pBLS course instructors than in interns.

Conclusions We developed a reliable and valid scoring tool for pBLS examination. Video-based rather than on-site scoring is recommended.