Development and implementation of emergency CPR instruction via telephone

We developed a cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) message that can be given via telephone by emergency dispatchers directly to an individual reporting a cardiac arrest. The message was developed and evaluated on the basis of empirical observation of CPR performance of 203 community volunteers during simulated cardiac arrest events. The majority of volunteers were women, aged 30 to 80 years, who had not had previous CPR training. An average of five ventilation and compression cycles were given within five minutes using telephone instruction. We judged the quality of CPR to be comparable to the performance of individuals who have received formal training. The specific words used in the message directly determined adequacy of performance, and resulted in significantly better CPR performance than did impromptu instruction offered by professional dispatchers (P less than or equal to .02).