Men Likelier than Women to Get CPR in Public Places

By Jane Farrell

Men are more likely to receive bystander CPR in public locations compared to women, and they are more likely to survive after the life-saving measure, according to preliminary research presented in November at the American Heart Association’s Scientific Sessions 2017, a premier global exchange of the latest advances in cardiovascular science for researchers and clinicians.

Using data from the Resuscitation Outcomes Consortium, a network of regional clinical centers in the United States and Canada studying out-of-hospital treatments of cardiac arrest and trauma, researchers analyzed 19,331 cardiac events in the home and in public.

They found:

• Overall, bystanders administered CPR in 37 percent of cardiac events in varied locations.
• 35 percent of women and 36 percent of men received CPR in the home, showing no significant difference in the likelihood of one gender getting assistance over the other in this setting.
• In public settings, 45 percent of men got assistance compared to 39 percent of women.
• Men were 1.23 times more likely to receive bystander CPR in public settings, and they had 23 percent increased odds of survival compared to women.

“CPR involves pushing on the chest so that could make people less certain whether they can or should do CPR in public on women,” said Audrey Blewer, M.P.H., the study’s first author and assistant director for educational programs at the Center for Resuscitation Science at the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia.

These findings identify a gap in bystander CPR delivery that can help improve future messaging and training to lay responders, health care providers and dispatchers.

“We’re only beginning to understand how to deliver CPR in public, although it’s been around for 50 years,” said Benjamin Abella, M.D., M.Phil., the study’s senior author and director of Penn’s Center for Resuscitation Science. “Our work highlights the fact that there’s still so much to learn about who learns CPR, who delivers CPR and how best to train people to respond to emergencies.”

The American Heart Association and the National Institutes of Health funded the study.

According to the American Heart Association, over 350,000 cardiac arrests occur outside of the hospital each year. CPR, especially if administered immediately after cardiac arrest, can double or triple a person’s chance of survival. About 90 percent of people who experience an out-of-hospital cardiac arrest die.

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About the American Heart Association

The American Heart Association is devoted to saving people from heart disease and stroke – the two leading causes of death in the world. We team with millions of volunteers to fund innovative research, fight for stronger public health policies and provide lifesaving tools and information to prevent and treat these diseases. The Dallas-based association is the nation’s oldest and largest voluntary organization dedicated to fighting heart disease and stroke. To learn more or to get involved, call 1-800-AHA-USA1, visit http://www.heart.org/ or call any of our offices around the country.

Courtesy of American Heart Association News.