A systematic review is a paper that summarizes the results of available studies and provides information on the reliability of results and evidence by working to delimit bias (Schlosser, R., 2006). It may or may not make judgment on the value of this information for health care practice. To have a better understanding of what a systematic review is, I decided to look more closely at one myself. After considering my recent experience in the nursing lab with practicing and reviewing cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) and considering the importance of knowing how to do this accurately, I decided to use this as my search term. The systematic review I found to be most interesting was entitled, “Cardiopulmonary …show more content…
According to the American Heart Association (2015), each year over 320,000 out-of-hospital cardiac arrests (OHCA) occur and as a result are one of the leading causes of death in the United States. With the frequent occurrence of such a life-threatening event, it is essential to understand the proper way to react. Cardiac arrests can be separated into three groups; ventricular fibrillation/tachycardia (VF/ VT), pulseless electrical activity (PEA), and asystole. The most common arrhythmia is VF or VT; during this event CPR provides a means to circulate the blood while defibrillation helps to restore rhythm (Huang, He, Yang, Liu, & Jones, 2014). Early defibrillation is associated with higher survival rates (Valenzuela, Roe, Nichol, Clark, Spaite, & Hardman, 2000). However, some hypothesize that CPR before defibrillation creates a more conductive environment (Huang et al., 2014). Understanding the priority of whether CPR or defibrillation needs to occur first is essential to improving survival rates. The overall question of this systematic review seeks to determine this order by asking; whether or not CPR plus defibrillation or immediate defibrillation resulted in better patient outcomes in OHCA. This question was addressed by examining whether 1 to 3 minutes of CPR performed by paramedics resulted in better survival rates and neurological outcomes compared to immediate defibrillation upon paramedic