According to a study, cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) is essential when patients experience cardiac arrest, however, longer CPR may be no better than a shorter one.
The resuscitation guidelines released in 2005 from the American Heart Association stated that the International Liaison Committee on Resuscitation suggested that responders must do CPR for two minutes before pulse checking. However, these guidelines have no definite basis and does not necessarily support what might the outcome of doing CPR for longer period.
In addition, the study also found out that those patients who received cardiopulmonary resuscitation from a bystander may be more effective if shortly done than a longer CPR from a trained paramedic.
The study was written in the New England Journal of Medicine. Researcher compared the outcomes of 9,933 cardiac arrest patients. Half of these patients have shorter CPR (30 to 60 seconds) and the other half has longer CPR (three minutes and more) before their heart rate were analyzed. Around 5.9 percent of patients survived and discharged from the hospital in good health.
The study did not evaluate patients whose cardiac rhythms were analyzed and not given CPR, however, the authors emphasized that it is important to give CPR before defibrillation procedure takes place.