BHF comment
Women less likely to receive bystander CPR than men, research shows
New research published today in the European Heart Journal has suggested that women are less likely receive bystander CPR or survive a cardiac arrest than men.
The research, led by cardiologist Dr Hanno Tan at the University of Amsterdam, found that only 68% of women are likely to receive bystander CPR compared to 73% of men.
Meanwhile, survival from the time of the cardiac arrest to hospital admission was 34% for women compared to 37% for men. Women are also less likely to survive from admission to discharge (37% versus 55%).
According to the research, an important factor in women not receiving CPR is that people did not recognise that women who collapsed were having a cardiac arrest, which resulted in delays in calling emergency services and delays in providing resuscitation treatment.
We already know from previous research that we part funded that women are dying due to unequal heart attack care.
Researchers from the University of Leeds found that more than 8,200 women in England and Wales could have survived their heart attacks had they been give the same treatment as men.
The study did not include all hospital admissions which occurred over the ten-year study period. Therefore, the researchers said that the actual number of lives lost to unequal care is likely to be much higher.
Sara Askew, our Head of Survival, said:
"This new insight is particularly worrying, given that we already know that women who have suffered a heart attack are less likely to receive the appropriate treatment. Now, it appears the case is the same for women who have cardiac arrests.
"Regardless of gender, the overall survival rate for an out-of-hospital cardiac arrest is shockingly less than one in ten. Every minute that passes without CPR and defibrillation reduces the chance of survival by up to 10 per cent, which is why knowing how to perform CPR is essential and doing something is always better than doing nothing."