School of Medicine and Health Sciences Poster Presentations
The Need for Public Awareness in the Washington D.C. Community for Witnessed Cardiac Arrest
Document Type
Poster
Abstract Category
Prevention and Community Health
Keywords
CPR, Resuscitation, cardiac arrests
Publication Date
Spring 5-1-2019
Abstract
Motivated by a need to understand how best to improve survival for patients arriving to emergency departments in out-of-hospital cardiac arrest, this study investigates CPR data for out-of-hospital cardiac arrest resuscitations brought by emergency medical systems (EMS) to George Washington Hospital (n=44). These represented cases that had data from video recording, chart review, and EMS-provided data parameters including outpatient bystander CPR, bystander, location, and outcomes. Data were described using summary statistics. Of the 44 cases analyzed, 20 of the arrests had been witnessed. Of the witnessed arrests, only 7 (35%) received bystander CPR. Of the unwitnessed arrests, 9 (37.5%) patients received bystander CPR. The rate of bystander CPR for witnessed and unwitnessed cardiac arrests was 35% and 37.5%, respectively. This is comparable to study in 2015 on prevalence of bystander CPR. The literature shows that there is a need for increased public awareness and education about CPR to improve survival for out-of-hospital cardiac arrest. Studies have shown that training initiatives reduce reported likelihood of barriers such as fear of litigation, fear of hurting the patient, and other personal factors as well as increase reported likelihood of CPR. The current case series suggests that additional efforts are needed to increase CPR uptake in the Washington D.C. area.
Open Access
1
The Need for Public Awareness in the Washington D.C. Community for Witnessed Cardiac Arrest
Motivated by a need to understand how best to improve survival for patients arriving to emergency departments in out-of-hospital cardiac arrest, this study investigates CPR data for out-of-hospital cardiac arrest resuscitations brought by emergency medical systems (EMS) to George Washington Hospital (n=44). These represented cases that had data from video recording, chart review, and EMS-provided data parameters including outpatient bystander CPR, bystander, location, and outcomes. Data were described using summary statistics. Of the 44 cases analyzed, 20 of the arrests had been witnessed. Of the witnessed arrests, only 7 (35%) received bystander CPR. Of the unwitnessed arrests, 9 (37.5%) patients received bystander CPR. The rate of bystander CPR for witnessed and unwitnessed cardiac arrests was 35% and 37.5%, respectively. This is comparable to study in 2015 on prevalence of bystander CPR. The literature shows that there is a need for increased public awareness and education about CPR to improve survival for out-of-hospital cardiac arrest. Studies have shown that training initiatives reduce reported likelihood of barriers such as fear of litigation, fear of hurting the patient, and other personal factors as well as increase reported likelihood of CPR. The current case series suggests that additional efforts are needed to increase CPR uptake in the Washington D.C. area.
Comments
Presented at Research Days 2019.