How TV CPR Portrayals Can Mislead Viewers

People who have a cardiac arrest outside hospital on television are more likely to be given CPR than people facing the same emergency in real life.

Yet, newly published research by my University of Pittsburgh team suggests that these programmes frequently show outdated methods and create inaccurate impressions of who is most likely to have a cardiac arrest, and where it is likely to happen.

It matters how CPR appears in the media, as research indicates that health information shown on screen can shape audiences' views and actions.

In January 2023, Buffalo Bills player Damar Hamlin had a cardiac arrest during a match, with viewers around the world watching medical professionals rapidly begin cardiopulmonary resuscitation. Hamlin made a full recovery and, afterwards, a group of emergency medicine professionals and I at the University of Pittsburgh - Hamlin's alma mater - set out to teach hands-only CPR to every Division I athlete.

At CPR sessions we delivered in middle schools around Pittsburgh and within college athletics programmes, attendees often asked if they ought to check for a pulse or provide rescue breaths. Many said they had watched CPR being performed in programmes such as "Grey's Anatomy."

Medical professionals do take these actions when delivering traditional CPR, but hands-only CPR is an effective approach recommended for untrained bystanders. Once you have established that someone requires assistance and that the area is safe, hands-only CPR involves only two actions: call 911 and deliver firm, rapid chest compressions.

Because my work examines how medical subjects depicted on screen affect audiences, these questions prompted my interest. I began to consider whether participants were asking about pulse checks and rescue breaths partly because television had shown them these practices.

The power of media

In 2022, my colleagues and I reviewed 165 studies investigating the impact of health and medical material in scripted television on audiences.

We discovered that television narratives can affect viewers' health attitudes, knowledge and behaviour. That effect can sometimes be damaging, for example when television exposes audiences to incorrect information about organ donation.

At other times, however, the effect is beneficial: one study reported that people who watched an "ER" plotline concerning breast cancer were more likely to recommend screening and a patient navigator who supports patients through treatment.

Even so, we found no research assessing how on-screen CPR affects audiences. Earlier studies of in-hospital cardiac arrest and CPR identified media inaccuracies involving chest-compression technique and survival rates, but none examined depictions of cardiac arrests outside hospital or CPR delivered by a lay rescuer.

Performing CPR on TV

My team used the Internet Movie Database to locate episodes of American television programmes featuring out-of-hospital cardiac arrest or hands-only CPR. We considered only episodes released after 2008, the year in which the American Heart Association first endorsed hands-only CPR.

Among the 169 episodes meeting our criteria, we recorded the sociodemographic characteristics of the character who had a cardiac arrest and of the main witnesses. We also noted whether hands-only CPR was given, how it was delivered and where it took place.

Encouragingly, a layperson performed CPR on more than 58% of characters who experienced cardiac arrest outside hospital on screen. In reality, however, fewer than 40% of people who have a cardiac arrest outside hospital receive CPR.

Such frequent portrayals of CPR on screen may encourage audiences to intervene, as happened with a 12-year-old boy who saved a life in 2023 by using CPR methods he had seen on "Stranger Things."

However, hands-only CPR was performed correctly in fewer than 30% of the episodes. Rescue breaths were shown in almost 50% of episodes, while characters checked for a pulse in 43%.

We did not directly measure whether these episodes change viewers' behaviour. Nevertheless, our observations during CPR instruction indicate that such portrayals may give audiences the wrong impression of how hands-only CPR should be performed.

Who gets CPR and where on screen

Our results also suggest that television portrayals of cardiac arrest may mislead viewers about both the settings in which these emergencies occur and the people most likely to need CPR.

Only 20% of the cardiac arrests outside hospital shown on screen took place at home. By contrast, more than 80% of cardiac arrests occurring outside hospital in real life happen in the home.

Characters having cardiac arrest on television were also younger than people who have one in reality: more than 50% were under 40, compared with a real-world average age of about 62.

Finally, almost 65% of those receiving hands-only CPR and 73% of those providing CPR were white men. This reflects real-world figures, in which women and people of colour who have a cardiac arrest outside hospital are less likely to receive CPR from a layperson.

Accurate TV to save lives

The American Heart Association's 2025 guidelines for CPR and emergency cardiovascular care stressed the importance of helping members of the public picture themselves delivering hands-only CPR. The guidelines also called for better CPR education so that everyone who needs CPR receives it.

Our team is examining what viewers learn from television depictions of CPR. Our aim is to work alongside public health and medical professionals to improve the way Hollywood presents CPR.

Earlier research has demonstrated that entertainment stories can encourage altruistic behaviour, while news reports have recorded cases in which people performed CPR after seeing it on screen.

Likewise, I believe that engaging, scripted television could offer a powerful and cost-effective means of improving CPR education and, ultimately, saving lives.

Beth Hoffman, Assistant Professor of Behavioral and Community Health Sciences, University of Pittsburgh

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.