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The study which was published by the American Heart Association (AHA) found that women are less likely to receive CPR from strangers than men in public. They also found that men would be more likely to receive a 23% higher successful CPR tactic than women.
READ MORE: When women judge other women harshly - it's men who end up benefiting
The results which was taken from the Resuscitation Outcomes Consortium (ROC), which is a group of clinical centres based around the U.S. and Canada that study out-of-hospital cardiac traumas, using data from 19 331 cardiac events which happened both inside the home and in public.
Sadly for women the results were a lot more than a little scary. Here are the findings from the study.
The study found that 35% women and 36% men respectively, have received administered CPR while going under cardiac arrest in the home. These results have no significant difference.
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The difference for men and women who received CPR in the public however, is much more alarming, with 45% males at the receiving end of life saving CPR assistance. The rate for women was 39%.
According to the study, "men were 1.23 times more likely to receive bystander CPR in public settings, and they had 23 percent increased odds of survival compared to woman".
The reason behind this percentage difference according to one of the authors of the study, Aubrey Blewer, is that men have certain concerns on whether or not they're allowed to touch women and often choose to avoid being accused of sexual harassment.
READ MORE: 58% of men now recognise the importance of calling out sexual harassment and the #MeToo movement
"CPR involves pushing on the chest so that could make people less certain whether they can or should do CPR in public on women" she said.
Another one of the authors of the study, Benjamin Abella, a M.D and philanthropist, contributed the findings of the study to the fact that people are still very unaware on how to react in moments of emergencies.
“We’re only beginning to understand how to deliver CPR in public, although it's been around for 50 years. Our work highlights the fact that there's still so much to learn about who learns CPR, who delivers CPR and how best to train people to respond to emergencies.” he said.
READ MORE: How to save a life
In an updated study, also by ROC, researchers asked 54 people online why they think less women receive CPR then men.
Some of the identified reasons were fear of being accused of sexual assault, "potential inappropriate touching and inability to recognise a women who is experiencing cardiac arrest specifically because of the assumption that women generally don't have heart problems or even that women may be overdramatising or faking the event".
A terrifying assumption.
The AMA states that, when administered directly after cardiac arrest, CPR can "double or even triple someones chance of survival".
And according to this study published by Heart and Stroke Foundation SA, every hour five people die from a heart attack and 10 people die from a stroke. With these kinds of numbers, we have absolutely no time for reservations before taking action and saving a life.
WATCH: Basic life saving - how to perform CPR
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