Background Responsible, shared decision making on the part ofphysicians and patients about the potential use of cardiopulmonaryresuscitation (CPR) requires patients who are educated aboutthe procedure's risks and benefits. Television is an importantsource of information about CPR for patients. We analyzed howthree popular television programs depict CPR.
Methods We watched all the episodes of the television programsER and Chicago Hope during the 1994–1995 viewing seasonand 50 consecutive episodes of Rescue 911 broadcast over a three-monthperiod in 1995. We identified all occurrences of CPR in eachepisode and recorded the causes of cardiac arrest, the identifiabledemographic characteristics of the patients, the underlyingillnesses, and the outcomes.
Results There were 60 occurrences of CPR in the 97 televisionepisodes — 31 on ER, 11 on Chicago Hope, and 18 on Rescue911. In the majority of cases, cardiac arrest was caused bytrauma; only 28 percent were due to primary cardiac causes.Sixty-five percent of the cardiac arrests occurred in children,teenagers, or young adults. Seventy-five percent of the patientssurvived the immediate arrest, and 67 percent appeared to havesurvived to hospital discharge.
Conclusions The survival rates in our study are significantlyhigher than the most optimistic survival rates in the medicalliterature, and the portrayal of CPR on television may leadthe viewing public to have an unrealistic impression of CPRand its chances for success. Physicians discussing the use ofCPR with patients and families should be aware of the imagesof CPR depicted on television and the misperceptions these imagesmay foster.
Source Information
From the Center for Health Services Research in Primary Care, Durham Veterans Affairs Medical Center, Durham, N.C. (S.J.D., J.A.T.); the Division of General Internal Medicine (S.J.D., J.A.T.), the Center for Health Policy Research and Education (J.A.T.), and the Center for the Study of Aging and Human Development (J.A.T.), Duke University Medical Center, Durham, N.C.; and the MacLean Center for Medical Ethics, University of Chicago, Chicago (J.D.L.).
Address reprint requests to Dr. Diem at Health Services Research (152), Veterans Affairs Medical Center, 508 Fulton St., Durham, NC 27705.
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