Patients’ opinions in regard with the witnessed cardiopulmonary resuscitation in emercency departments

Abstract

Objective: Patient’s relatives are typically not permitted to be present in the resuscitation rooms during the Cardiopulmonary Resuscitation (CPR) as continuation of traditional practice in the emergency departments. However, the patient’s relatives should be kept in perspective along with the patient by considering that they are a part of the patient, and their needs and expectations should be taken into consideration as well. For this purpose, preferences of the patient’s relatives and the reasons behind their preferences for requesting to be in the resuscitation room while CPR is being performed to a patient have been evaluated in our study.
Methods: Six hundred and fifty six patients who have applied to the emergency department of Afyonkarahisar State Hospital and who accepted to participate in study have constituted the study’s sample. Data has been collected by utilizing a face-to-face meeting technique with “Individual Characteristics Form” consisting of 11 questions and “Opinions’ Assessment with Regard to CPR Attempt” consisting of six questions. A CPR Attempt Introductory Presentation has been made to the patients before using a questionnaire form. Each meeting lasted approximately 15-20 minutes.
Results: 75% of the patients stated they would have wanted to be present in the resuscitation room, on their relative’s side, in case of CPR is performed to one of his/her relatives. It was also found that 52.9% and 34.2% of them wanted to be present with the purposes of ‘‘I feel like supporting my patient / I want him/her to feel my existence’’ and ‘‘I will see the procedure done / I will make sure that something has been done to my patient’’, respectively. On the other hand 68.2%, 18.7% and 13.1% of the patient’s relatives who would not want to be on their patient’s side during a CPR procedure stated their reasons as ‘‘I may not handle it’’, ‘‘I would overcrowd the room for the working team’’ and ‘‘being present there does not benefit to my patient’’, respectively.
Conclusions: %75 of the patients who were admitted to the emergency department is found to support the witnessed CPR. Emergency department managers, should take patients’ relatives requests for being present in the resuscitation room during the CPR into consideration, and they should also consider making necessary arrangements in resuscitation rooms to accommodate these requests.