Discrepancy in perceived appropriate and desired resuscitation durations between physicians and laypersons in cardiac arrest patients

This study examined a discrepancy that exists between the duration of resuscitative efforts that physicians perceive as appropriate and the duration that laypersons desire. We conducted an online nationwide cross-sectional survey with 323 physicians and 2,667 laypersons. Physicians were significantly more likely than laypersons to consider a duration of ≥ 30 min as appropriate for resuscitation, especially in younger patients (age 0-6:85% vs. 27%; age 7-17:84% vs. 29%; both p < 0.001). Although these responses arise from fundamentally different psychological frames, identifying this discrepancy may provide a conceptual foundation for discussing more appropriate termination-of-resuscitation approaches in real-world clinical settings.