A hands-only CPR (cardiopulmonary resuscitation) video got untrained lay people to perform CPR significantly better than untrained individuals who never saw the footage, researchers revealed in Circulation: Cardiovascular Quality and Outcomes.

Out-of-hospital cardiac arrests affect approximately 300,000 people annually in the USA. Unfortunately, survival rates are very poor. However, a bystander who performs CPR can double and even triple the patient’s chance of survival in a non-hospital setting.

Sadly, CPR is only attempted on 26% of times somebody collapses with an out-of-hospital cardiac arrest, wrote Bentley J. Bobrow M.D., lead author.

Bobrow said:

“Chest compression-only CPR, also known as hands-only CPR, has been shown in studies to be at least as effective as standard CPR with mouth-to-mouth ventilation for adult primary cardiac arrest victims. And because of its simplicity, hands-only CPR may be quicker and easier for lay rescuers to learn, remember and perform than conventional CPR.”

The research team carried out a study with 336 adult participants. None of them had any recent CPR training. They were randomly selected into four groups:

  • 51 of them had no training in CPR during the study – the control group
  • 95 of them watched an Ultra Brief Video (UBV) that lasted 1-minute
  • 99 of them watched a Brief Video (BV) that lasted 5 minutes
  • 91 of them watched a Brief Video with Practice (BVP), they also had a training session with a manikin

They were then assessed for performance in a simulated out-of-hospital cardiac arrest situation. Half of the trained participants were tested straight away, and the other half two months later.

The researchers found that:

  • 23.5% of the control group (untrained group) did not try to do any CPR at all
  • 0.7% of the four groups combined did not try to do any CPR at all
  • Those who had received some training during the study were much more likely to attempt CPR compared to those in the control group, even those who were assessed two months later
  • CPR’s ideal compression rate is 100-compressions-per minute. In the immediate testing group, the median compression rates were: UBV-96, BV-95, BVP-99.5.
  • In the delayed testing group, median compression rates were UBV-94, BV-92.5, BVP-90
  • All the trained groups had a median compression depth of 30mm, much greater than the control group. The ideal compression depth is at least 38mm.
  • The difference in the median compression rates and median compression depths between those tested straight away and two months later was insignificant.

Bobrow said:

“This is the first controlled, randomized investigation evaluating the effectiveness of ultra-brief video training for teaching hands-only CPR to the lay public. Given that the ultra-brief video training in our study is only 60 seconds, the CPR performance results are striking.

This finding has enormous public health implications because of the documented hesitancy of untrained rescuers to even attempt CPR and because it is known that any bystander resuscitation attempt improves outcomes compared to no CPR.”

“The Effectiveness of Ultrabrief and Brief Educational Videos for Training Lay Responders in Hands-Only Cardiopulmonary Resuscitation Implications for the Future of Citizen Cardiopulmonary Resuscitation Training”
Bentley J. Bobrow, MD, Tyler F. Vadeboncoeur, MD, Daniel W. Spaite, MD, Jerald Potts, PhD, Kurt Denninghoff, MD, Vatsal Chikani, MPH, Paula R. Brazil, MA, Bob Ramsey, MA and Benjamin S. Abella, MD, MPhil
CIRCOUTCOMES.110.959353 Published online before print March 8, 2011, doi: 10.1161/CIRCOUTCOMES.110.959353

Written by Christian Nordqvist