LOS ANGELES, Nov. 4, 2012 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Family members didn’tgive CPR for cardiac arrests as often as passers-by or friends in aJapanese study presented at the American Heart Association’s ScientificSessions 2012.Cardiac arrest is the sudden loss of heart function, typicallyresulting from an abnormal heart rhythm that causes the heart to quivererratically and stop pumping blood. According to the American HeartAssociation, effective bystander CPR provided immediately after suddencardiac arrest can double or triple a victim’s chance of survival.
In a review of 547,218 cardiac arrests occurring in 2005-09,researchers identified almost 140,000 incidents witnessed by bystanderswithout a physician’s involvement. Bystander groups studied includedfamily members, friends and colleagues, passers-by and others.
Researchers found:
-- The time interval between collapse and emergency call and between call and arrival to patients was shortest when witnessed by passers-by.
-- Family members were least likely (36.5 percent) to administer CPR, but most likely to receive telephone instructions from dispatchers (45.8 percent).
-- The telephone instruction to family members most frequently failed (39.4 percent) and family members most often used chest compressions only (67.9 percent).
“If you go into cardiac arrest in front of your family, you may notsurvive,” said Hideo Inaba, M.D., Ph.D., lead author of the study andprofessor and chairman of the Department of Emergency Medical Scienceat Kanazawa University Graduate School of Medicine in Kanazawa, Japan."Different strategies, including basic life support instructiontargeting smaller households, especially those with elderly residents,would improve survival, as would recruiting well-trained citizenswilling to perform CPR on victims whose arrest was witnessed by familymembers.”
CPR provided by family members may have been ineffective due to theirlack of knowledge or fear of injuring their loved one, said Inaba.Cultural and demographic issues in Japan, which has a large gender gap,may also have contributed to the findings, he said.
In a study conducted in 2008, researchers found that Japanese womenwere less likely to attempt CPR. Men accounted for a majority ofcardiac arrests in the current study, and their wives ordaughters-in-law witnessed most of them, researchers said.
Japan has a rapidly aging population, with elderly people, mostlycouples, in 42 percent of households in 2010, Inaba said.
“These characteristics of Japanese households might have contributed toour observations and may be different from households in the UnitedStates,” Inaba said. “Also, the percentage of older persons in Japan islarger than in the U.S. population. So the results may be lessapplicable.”
Furthermore, the database didn’t include the exact location of eachcardiac arrest, although basic life support response and outcomesdiffer between locations. The type of bystander who responds is alsoclosely related to the location of the cardiac arrest.
Co-authors are: Takahisa Kamikura, M.D.; Tetsuo Maeda, M.D.; YoshitakaHamada, M.D., Ph.D.; Satoru Sakagami, M.D., PhD; and Taiki Nishi andKeiko Takase, master course students.
Author disclosures are on the abstract.
Learn more about the American Heart Association’s efforts to promoteCPR.
Follow news from the American Heart Association’s Scientific Sessions2012 via Twitter: @HeartNews.
Statements and conclusions of study authors that are presented atAmerican Heart Association scientific meetings are solely those of thestudy authors and do not necessarily reflect association policy orposition. The association makes no representation or warranty as totheir accuracy or reliability. The association receives fundingprimarily from individuals; foundations and corporations (includingpharmaceutical, device manufacturers and other companies) also makedonations and fund specific association programs and events. Theassociation has strict policies to prevent these relationships frominfluencing the science content. Revenues from pharmaceutical anddevice corporations are available at www. heart.org/corporatefunding.
Note: Actual presentation is 11:30 a.m. PT/ 2:30 p.m. ET Sunday, Nov.4, 2012 in the Gold Ballroom at the JW Marriott at LA Live.
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