Men are more likely to receive bystander CPR in public locations compared to women, and they are more likely to survive after the life-saving measure, according to preliminary research presented at the American Heart Association’s Scientific Sessions 2017, a premier global exchange of the latest advances in cardiovascular science for researchers and clinicians.

Using data from the Resuscitation Outcomes Consortium, a network of regional clinical centers in the United States and Canada studying out-of-hospital treatments of cardiac arrest and trauma, researchers analyzed 19,331 cardiac events in the home and in public.

They found:

• Overall, bystanders administered CPR in 37% of cardiac events in varied locations.
• 35% of women and 36% of men received CPR in the home, showing no significant difference in the likelihood of one gender getting assistance over the other in this setting.
• In public settings, 45% of men got assistance compared to 39% of women.
• Men were 1.23 times more likely to receive bystander CPR in public settings, and they had 23% increased odds of survival compared to women.

“CPR involves pushing on the chest so that could make people less certain whether they can or should do CPR in public on women,” said Audrey Blewer, MPH, the study’s first author and assistant director for educational programs at the Center for Resuscitation Science at the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia.

These findings identify a gap in bystander CPR delivery that can help improve future messaging and training to lay responders, health care providers and dispatchers.

“We’re only beginning to understand how to deliver CPR in public, although it's been around for 50 years,” said Benjamin Abella, MD, MPhil, the study’s senior author and director of Penn’s Center for Resuscitation Science. “Our work highlights the fact that there's still so much to learn about who learns CPR, who delivers CPR and how best to train people to respond to emergencies.”