Public Perceptions on Why Women Receive Less Bystander Cardiopulmonary Resuscitation Than Men in Out-of-Hospital Cardiac Arrest

• DOI: 10.1161/circulationaha.118.037692
• Publication Date: 2019-02-19T19:03:00Z
• Authors: Sarah M. Perman; Shelby K. Shelton; Christopher Knoepke; Kathryn Rappaport; Daniel D. Matlock; Kathleen Adelgais; Edward P. Havranek; Stacie L. Daugherty
• Keywords: Bystander effect

Background: Women who suffer an out-of-hospital cardiac arrest receive bystander cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) less often than men. Understanding public perceptions of why this occurs is a necessary first step toward equitable application potentially life-saving intervention. Methods: We conducted national survey members the using Mechanical Turk, Amazon’s crowdsourcing platform, to determine reasons women might CPR Eligible participants were adults (≥18 years) located in United States. Responses excluded if participant was not able define correctly. Participants asked answer following free-text question: “Do you have any ideas on may be likely men when they collapse public?” Descriptive statistics used cohort. The response coded open coding, and major themes identified via classical content analysis. Results: In total, 548 subjects surveyed. Mean age 38.8 years, 49.8% female. geographically distributed as follows: 18.5% West, 9.2% Southwest, 22.0% Midwest, 27.5% Southeast, 22.9% Northeast. After analysis, 3 detected for perceives that CPR. They include following: (1) sexualization women’s bodies; (2) are weak frail therefore prone injury; (3) misperceptions about acute medical distress. Overall, 41.9% (227) trained while 4.4% reported having provided emergency. Conclusions: Members general perceive fears inappropriate touching, accusations sexual assault, fear causing injury inhibiting women. Educational policy efforts address these reduce sex differences