Women are less likely to be successfully resuscitated with CPR by emergency medical services when they have a cardiac arrest outside of the hospital, according to researchers in The Netherlands who presented at the American Heart Association’s Scientific Sessions 2014.Researchers identified 22,443 out-of-hospital cardiac deaths (52.8 percent male) and reviewed data on 6,038 out-of-hospital CPR attempts by emergency medical services (72.5 percent male) in the same study region, all aged over 20. They found:
- Women have a significantly lower chance of receiving a resuscitation attempt from emergency medical personnel than men (15 percent women vs. 35 percent men).
- Women had a significantly lower chance of successful survival after a resuscitation attempt than men (13 percent women vs. 20 percent men).
- Women had a lower proportion of “shockable” initial heart rhythm (34 percent women vs. 49 percent men), a strong determinant of survival.
Social factors (such as older women living alone) as well as biological factors (such as women presenting with different symptoms or more heart failure as cause of the sudden cardiac arrest) may be reasons why women have less chance of receiving CPR, researchers said.
While this study took place in The Netherlands, researchers believe their findings would also be applicable in the United States.
Marieke Blom, Ph.D., The Heart Failure Research Center at the Academic Medical Center in Amsterdam, The Netherlands
SOURCE: American Heart Association