Abstract 283: Barriers to Calling 911 and Performing Cardiopulmonary Resuscitation in High-Risk Neighborhoods in Denver

Abstract

Background: Previous research in Denver, CO identified five high-risk neighborhoods where the incidence of OHCA (out-of-hospital cardiac arrest) is high and bystander cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) is low. The neighborhoods are comprised primarily of Latino and African-American residents with a median household income of <$35,000. Objectives: 1) To identify barriers to calling 911 and performing CPR neighborhoods in Denver’s high-risk neighborhoods. 2) To understand people’s familiarity with and opinions about hands-only CPR as compared to traditional CPR. Methods: Six focus groups and nine key informant interviews were conducted between August 2011 and March 2012 the five high-risk Denver neighborhoods. We utilized purposeful and snowball sampling to recruit 64 participants. A qualitative study design using grounded theory was used to develop codes, categories and themes in an iterative process. The focus groups were audiotaped and transcribed verbatim. Two reviewers independently read through each transcript and developed a conceptual framework. Results: Demographics of the participants are listed in Table 1. Six main thematic areas were identified as barriers to calling 911 for residents: cost incurred by victim/victim’s family, undocumented status, fear of getting involved, unsure of what an emergency situation is, language barriers, and cultural issues. Eight main thematic areas were identified as barriers to performing CPR: legal ramifications, fear of doing CPR incorrectly, fear of breathing into someone else’s mouth, fear of hurting victims, being too old to do effective CPR, panic, undocumented status and a lack of resources on CPR in Spanish. Conclusion: We identified significant cultural and language barriers to calling 911 and performing CPR. Future work will be conducted with residents from these neighborhoods to design and implement a community-based intervention that will overcome these barriers.