Cardiopulmonary Resuscitation or CPR is one of the basic first aid procedures that should be taught in school for various reasons, most of which are health related; in the most serious cases, it can spell the difference between the survival and death of a person. The purpose of this paper is to propose a research plan that explains why (and how) it is important to learn how to perform this procedure. In the proposal, the author would draw evidence from both primary and secondary sources, basically previously published academic literatures about the topic.
The reality is that humans are so fragile. One moment a person may be doing well and breathing, the next moment, he may be gone. A person suffering from a cardiovascular disease, for example, is prone to myocardial infarction or heart attack in layman’s term. When a person is having a cardiac arrest, for example, a nearby person who knows how to perform CPR would surely be able to save the patient’s life. And this is the main reason why learning CPR is important. According to the Youth Development for Healthy Living and Social Responsibility (YMCA of Metropolitan Dallas, 2013), learning first aid procedures and CPR is one of the many ways that shows we recognize that. At some point, learning CPR can, in fact, be considered as a social responsibility because of the benefits that it offers. According to statistics, some 383,000 incidents of cardiac arrest happen outside hospitals; in such cases, there would be no licensed medical professionals who would help resuscitate the patients. The only chance left for patients suffering from out of hospital cardiac arrests to survive or not suffer from severe irreversible damages to their body is if a stranger who knows how to perform CPR passes by, something which is rare even these days.
The incidence of out of hospital emergencies can be alarming to the point that one can already think whether deploying first aid and CPR experts on the field to patrol would seem to be a sensible suggestion. The thing with emergencies is that nobody knows when they are going to happen; most of the time, emergencies catch people unprepared. If a family, relative, or friend knows how to perform CPR, however, that should at least be considered as an advantage because one can make sure that someone is going to be capable of rescuing someone should any untoward incident happen. Swimming accidents and heart attack (and its complications) are some of the top killers in the United States and other developed countries; ironically, they are also the ones that can be easily addressed (or first aided) using CPR .
A patient whose heart stopped functioning may still be alive. However, the longer the period of heart dysfunction is, the bigger the possibility that that person would suffer from severe and often irreversible disability. The same is in fact true for non-cardiovascular conditions such as stroke. The longer the patient lays unconscious, the bigger the damage to the affected organs; when the heart stops functioning, oxygenated blood cannot flow to the different organs of the body that need it (e.g. the brain), unfortunately, the brain can only survive for a couple of minutes (not exceeding five minutes) without oxygen. So, it is important for that patient to have been resuscitated already before that small window of opportunity closes, otherwise, it would already be a certainty that he would suffer from irreversible damage. In the case of stroke, for example, a patient can suffer from mild muscle weakness to complete paralysis of the limbs (paraplegia or quadriplegia depending on the damaged brain area) depending on how long the patient’s brain has been deprived of oxygen. If only CPR training has been made a compulsory subject in middle school and more people know how to perform CPR, then people who are at risk of having these conditions would have the peace of mind that should they need to be resuscitated, someone, even a stranger, would be able to help them .
In order to verify these, the author of this paper is going to conduct a research that would utilize academic literatures, primarily previously published studies about the advantages of CPR training both for the patients, other health professionals, and society in general.
Point I – Human Life is Fragile and Learning CPR is one of the many ways that shows we recognize that
Support 1: Teaching CPR in public can improve awareness on the importance of CPR training when it comes to saving lives
Point II – Most Medical Emergencies that can be addressed by CPR occur in a place of recreation of sometimes in a person’s home
Support 1: Making the public realize the importance of the role that they can play (once they get CPR-trained) can inspire them to learn how to actually perform the procedure
Point III – CPR can make the difference between total recovery and severe disability
Support 1: Including the physiology of certain disease and medical emergencies that can be addressed with CPR can make a difference between an indifferent and a participating community
Purpose
What makes the author of this paper interested in the current topic is the fact that a lot of people suffer from meaningless deaths every year. Some patients even die before making it to the hospital just because there is no one around who knows how to perform CPR. What is more interesting is that the outcome of such cases is perfectly modifiable—if only the people who witnessed the medical emergency knows how to perform CPR—unfortunately in most cases they do not and so the patients have to wait until help from the nearest hospital or medical center comes. Basically, this paper aims to answer the research question “how important it is to learn CPR”.
Method
For the method that will be used to answer the research question, the author has prepared a summary and annotation of the academic sources that will be used as references. This method was chosen because it relies on empirical evidence in answering the research question.
Annotated Bibliography
Einspruch, E., Lynch, B., Aufderheide, T., Nichol, G., & Becker, L. (2007). Retention of CPR skills learned in a traditional AHA Heartsaver course versus 30-min video self-training: a controlled randomized stud. Resuscitation, 476-486.
Madden, C. (2006). Undergraduate nursing students' acquisition and retention of CPR knowledge and skills. Nurse Education Today, 218-227.
This paper’s objective was to test the acquisition and retention of CPR knowledge and skills among undergraduate nursing students; this was based on the notion that even nurses, without proper CPR training, can fail to administer CPR procedures during emergencies and that the same can be true for individuals who are not working in the allied medical profession. This source is relevant to the current study because it provides additional justification on the importance of CPR training for nurses and non-medical and health professionals.
YMCA of Metropolitan Dallas. (2013). Summer Safety: The Top Reasons Everyone Should know CPR and First Aid. YMCA.
This was a collation of evidence obtained from various papers about the importance of CPR training, its benefits, and why some people still choose not to undergo training. This source is relevant because it offers a comprehensive although brief answer to the main research question of the proposed research.
Saghafinia, M., & Hosseini, K. (2012). CPR Training for Nurses: How often is it Necessary? Iranian Red Crescent Medical Journal, 104-107.
This quasi-experimental study was aimed at answering the question on how often nurses are required to undergo CPR training even though they have already undergone the said training during their university days. This study is relevant to the present research because it suggests a unique perspective about CPR training, particularly its frequency and regularity.
Potts, J., & Lynch, B. (2006). The American Heart Association CPR Anytime Program: the potential impact of highly accessible training in cardiopulmonary resuscitation. Journal of Cardiopulmonary Rehabilitation, 346-354.
This paper focused on studying the impact of providing highly accessible CPR training programs to subjects. What makes this study relevant is that it provides an empirically studied option on how to deliver CPR training programs and the advantages of such option; it also provided information on why and how important it is to learn CPR using the aforementioned method.
Cave, D., Aufderheide, T., Beeson, J., Ellison, A., Gregory, A., Hazinski, M., et al. (2011). Importance and implementation of training in cardiopulmonary resuscitation and automated external defibrillation in schools a science advisory from the American Heart Association. Circulation, 691-706.
This study examined the importance of training individuals on how to perform CPR using an automated defibrillation in a school setting. This was a more specific review that can be likened to the research paper that is currently being proposed—it focused on the school setting and on a more specific form of CPR; this should give the researchers an idea what kind of implementation strategy and method to incorporate in the study.
Woollard, M., Whitfield, R., Newcombe, R., Colquhoun, M., Vetter, N., & Chamberlain, D. (2006). Optimal refresher training intervals for AED and CPR skills: a randomised controlled trial. Resuscitation, 237-247.
References
Cave, D., Aufderheide, T., Beeson, J., Ellison, A., Gregory, A., Hazinski, M., et al. (2011). Importance and implementation of training in cardiopulmonary resuscitation and automated external defibrillation in schools a science advisory from the American Heart Association. Circulation, 691-706.
Einspruch, E., Lynch, B., Aufderheide, T., Nichol, G., & Becker, L. (2007). Retention of CPR skills learned in a traditional AHA Heartsaver course versus 30-min video self-training: a controlled randomized stud. Resuscitation, 476-486.
Madden, C. (2006). Undergraduate nursing students' acquisition and retention of CPR knowledge and skills. Nurse Education Today, 218-227.
Potts, J., & Lynch, B. (2006). The American Heart Association CPR Anytime Program: the potential impact of highly accessible training in cardiopulmonary resuscitation. Journal of Cardiopulmonary Rehabilitation, 346-354.
Saghafinia, M., & Hosseini, K. (2012). CPR Training for Nurses: How often is it Necessary? Iranian Red Crescent Medical Journal, 104-107.
Woollard, M., Whitfield, R., Newcombe, R., Colquhoun, M., Vetter, N., & Chamberlain, D. (2006). Optimal refresher training intervals for AED and CPR skills: a randomised controlled trial. Resuscitation, 237-247.
YMCA of Metropolitan Dallas. (2013). Summer Safety: The Top Reasons Everyone Should know CPR and First Aid. YMCA.
