CPR saves more lives on television than in real life – HP / De Tijd

In medical television series are regularly resuscitated people and often with success. Research shows that what happens in those series, not quite correspond to reality. According to the researchers indicate series Grey’s Anatomy and House MD people mistakenly feel that CPR often saves lives. The percentage is actually so much lower.

Popular medical series are primarily designed for entertainment and not to inform people. The situations in the programs therefore often does not correspond to reality. That the researchers conclude, after their study 91 episodes of Grey’s Anatomy and House MD , which were broadcast in 2010 and 2011, studied.

In the episodes were resuscitated a total of 46 times. The scientists from the University of Southern California looked at the percentage of patients that the CPR survived and how many of them then actually survived. They also took into account the cause of the cardiac arrest and the background of resuscitated patients. The investigation revealed that a whopping seventy percent of patients through the TV doctor was kept alive. That number is far higher than in real life. According to researchers, some 37 percent of the people saves, in reality, after a resuscitation, but dies part at a later time. According to lead researcher Susan Enguidanos is only thirteen percent of patients in cardiac arrest eventually overcome. Half of the fictional patients could after a short rehabilitation hospital already left, something that really will not.

Another interesting fact which researchers encountered when viewing the series, was that the resuscitated TV characters were mostly between 18 and 65 years old. That did not correspond to reality, because it is almost always because of over-65s should be resuscitated. The TV doctors were often while using the wrong techniques to get the heart pumping again. The scientists are also concerned about the misinformation that bring the series.

Earlier research would show that about 42 percent of people their medical knowledge derives from these series. “Most people have no idea what the actual survival of resuscitation and rely in making decisions for themselves and relatives so on wrong assumptions,” says Enguidanos.