Essay On Defibrillation

Out-of-hospital cardiac arrest or OHCA is an abrupt loss of cardiac function in a public setting, usually occurring instantly or soon after symptom development (American Heart Association [AHA], 2014-a). Defibrillation and cardiopulmonary resuscitation or CPR are well-documented variables in predicting poor OHCA outcomes (Bur et al. 2001). CPR is the method of compressing a patient’s chest at 100 beats per minute, providing adequate blood flow to the body’s vital organs, preserving life (New Zealand Resuscitation Council, 2010). Defibrillation is the delivery of an electric impulse across the heart to re-establish a normal cardiac rhythm, this is applied with an automated external defibrillator (AHA, 2014b). Return of spontaneous circulation or ROSC is defined as …show more content…
A Slovenian study by Grmec, Kozelj, Krizmaric, Lesnik, & Mally (2006) found that compared to patients who don’t receive bystander CPR, those that do have a five times better chance of survival to hospital discharge. Similarly, the St John (2014) Cardiac Arrest Registry states that sixty-four percent of OHCA events where resuscitation was attempted involved bystander CPR prior to ambulance crew intervention. St John (2014) believes and promotes that the implementation of bystander CPR substantially increases OHCA survival rates. This is supported by St John (2014) OHCA survival statistics which show that only ten percent of patients who experience OHCA at a private residence survive compared to twenty-three percent who experience OHCA in public. A study of bystander attitudes towards CPR and defibrillation by Eisenburger et al. (2004) states that the time between OHCA at the commencement of CPR is the most “crucial factor influencing the chances of survival.” The same study found that twenty-three percent of participants, the friends, neighbours and relatives