People put off giving CPR by unrealistic TV depictions, researchers say. Most dramas show characters searching for pulse and giving breaths but experts say chest compressions on their own can save lives.

**People put off giving CPR by unrealistic TV depictions, researchers say**

**Most dramas show characters searching for pulse and giving breaths but experts say chest compressions on their own can save lives**

Cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) is a dramatic intervention, but researchers say TV portrayals are often misleading – potentially influencing whether viewers feel able to carry it out themselves.

According to the British Heart Foundation (BHF) there are more than 30,000 out-of-hospital cardiac arrests every year in the UK.

But while CPR by bystanders can help save lives, the American Heart Association (AHA) notes the percentage of people in need who receive it is only about 35-45% globally.

The AHA has since 2008 attempted to increase such rates by stressing that people who are not trained, and hence might not feel comfortable giving breaths or searching for a pulse, should only perform chest compressions on adults – a position shared by the NHS.

Now researchers say TV shows often depict lay people carrying out additional steps, potentially perpetuating barriers to viewers carrying out the life-saving intervention.

“People are watching thousands and thousands and thousands of hours of television every single year, but people go to see their primary care physician once a year. So a lot of people are gaining most of their health content from the stuff that they watch on TV, the stuff that they experience on TV,” said Ore Fawole, lead author of the new study at the University of Pittsburgh.

Writing in the journal Circulation: Population Health and Outcomes, Fawole and colleagues report how they searched IMDb for TV episodes in the US depicting out-of-hospital cardiac arrests and CPR, excluding reality programmes and episodes released before 2008.

Among other shows, this encompassed episodes of Dexter, Quantum Leap, Homeland, The Walking Dead, Breaking Bad and Manifest.

The team found that of the 54 episodes showing CPR being administered out-of-hospital by a layperson, only 16 showed compression-only CPR. Meanwhile, 26 episodes showed breaths being given along with compressions, and 23 showed the layperson checking for a pulse.

For those interested, here’s the link to the peer reviewed journal article:

https://www.ahajournals.org/doi/10.1161/CIRCOUTCOMES.125.012657

Any access to the actual publication? It’s a letter and by the sound of it, it looks more like a possible hypothesis at best.