Objective To investigate the mastery of knowledge and skills of cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) among college students, and analyze the intervention effects of different training programs.

Methods Using a convenient sampling method, 452 undergraduate students from Anhui Medical University were selected as research subjects to conduct a questionnaire survey. The mastery of CPR knowledge and skills and willingness to receive training among the students were investigated. At the same time, 129 volunteers who met the inclusion criteria were recruited, and divided into the video self-study mode group, traditional practice teaching mode group and VR simulation scene teaching mode group according to the performance of CPR practice before the training (43 cases each group), and the intervention effects of different training programs were analyzed.

Results The results showed that only 14.60% of the students passed the CPR mastery survey, and 93.36% of the students were willing to actively participate in CPR training. There was no statistical significance in the CPR test scores among three groups before training (P ＞ 0.05), and the scores after training were significantly higher than those before training (P＜0.01). After the training, the CPR test scores in the traditional practical teaching mode group and VR simulation scene teaching mode group were higher than those in video self-study mode group (P ＜ 0.05).

Conclusions The mastery of CPR among college students is not optimistic, but their willingness to participate in CPR training is strong. Among the three training methods for CPR in this study, the teaching effects of traditional practical teaching mode and VR simulation scene teaching are similar, and both are more effective than video self-study mode.