Is emergency open chest cardiopulmonary resuscitation accepted by patients' families?
Emergency open chest cardiopulmonary resuscitation (OCCPR) is sometimes performed on patients with cardiopulmonary arrest (CPA), especially those resulting from trauma. Since OCCPR is frequently carried out without the permission of patients' families, we surveyed the opinions of the families. A total of 1058 CPA patients were transferred to our department during the last 15 years. We sent questionnaires individually to the families of these patients to ask their opinions about OCCPR. The questionnaire provided the six questions allowing multiple answers; (1) Do you unconditionally agree with OCCPR? (2) Do you agree with OCCPR in children? (3) Do you agree with OCCPR in elderly patients? (4) Do you agree with OCCPR without permission from patient's families? (5) Do you entrust OCCPR to the doctors in charge? and (6) others. The questionnaire reached 846 families, of which 277 (32.7%) responded. The percentage response to each question was (1) 70.2, (2) 5.8, (3) 21.8, (4) 7.1, (5) 4.2 and (6) 5.0%. The younger the age of the responders the more they agreed with OCCPR. All the responders less than 30 years old agreed with the procedure. Of the 277 families, 95 had CPA patients treated with OCCPR. This group of families responded to six questions at the following rates: (1) 79.5, (2) 6.0, (3) 13.3, (4) 2. 4, (5) 4.8 and (6) 4.8%, suggesting that families with OCCPR patients are more cooperative to our treatment than those with non-OCCPR patients. The results of this study suggest that OCCPR in CPA patients is generally accepted by the patients' families, especially by young generations, although post-OCCPR careful explanation to patients' families is still indispensable.
Sakamoto
T
T
Department of Traumatology and Critical Care Medicine, National Defense Medical College, 3-2 Namiki, Tokorozawa, Saitama 359-8513, Japan. tskmt@me.ndmc.ac.jp
Saitoh
D
D
Kaneko
N
N
Kawakami
M
M
Okada
Y
Y
D000328:Adult; D000367:Age Factors; D000368:Aged; D000369:Aged, 80 and over; D016887:Cardiopulmonary Resuscitation / Q000523:psychology* / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D004630:Emergencies; D005190:Family / Q000523:psychology*; D006323:Heart Arrest / Q000401:mortality / Q000523:psychology / Q000628:therapy; D006336:Heart Massage / Q000523:psychology* / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D006801:Humans; D016014:Linear Models; D008875:Middle Aged; D010342:Patient Acceptance of Health Care / Q000523:psychology* / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires