A couple of years ago, undergraduate nursing student Rylie Rasmussen attended a CPR training at the hospital where she was working. As a training video played, it stated it would not be portraying females for cultural and sensitivity reasons. As she continued to participate in trainings she noticed the same trend: women victims were never portrayed in CPR trainings. A flurry of questions began to fill her head: “Why aren’t we showing female victims?” and “Why don’t we practice CPR on female manikins?” Intrigued, she dove further into the topic.
In her initial exploration of the topic, she found that there was indeed a disparity between men and women during out-of-hospital cardiac arrest (OHCA). For example, recent studies conducted by the American Heart Association identify that women are less likely to receive optimal care during a cardiac event than men, resulting in higher mortality rates among women during and after these events. Under the direction of her professor, Dr. Adrianna Watson, Rylie sought to shed light on the issue.
With evidence of the disparity, she needed a direction to take her research, “being relatively new to the research area, I was struggling to find a direction.” In what she describes as a “very big aha moment,” Rylie decided to frame her research on the American Heart Association’s Chain of Survival, looking for gender disparity in each of the Chain’s 5 steps: symptom recognition, CPR, defibrillation, guideline-concordant advanced life support, and post-arrest care. Her research question asks, “What barriers contribute to disparities in OHCA survival outcomes for women, and how do these barriers manifest across the links of the Chain of Survival?”
The results of her study revealed significant disparities across each of the 5 links and concluded that these disparities are contributing factors in females being less likely to survive OHCA than males. Her research determined that the contributing factors for this are implicit provider bias, cultural discomfort with female anatomy, and the underrepresentation of women in resuscitation training materials.
Rylie said an important part of nursing is to help all individuals, including those who aren’t treated with equality. To her, this research allowed her to practice the Healer’s art, “you can be more like the Savior in the way that he healed everyone and looking out for the people that weren’t getting the same treatment.”
This undergraduate research project is an example of what BYU has named “experiential learning.” President C. Shane Reese has stated, “Our ultimate goal is for every BYU student to have at least two [inspiring, experiential learning] experiences during their time at the university.” The College of Nursing has several opportunities for experiential learning. Research experiential learning in the College of Nursing aims to reach new understanding and develop new practices, policies, and resources.
Being afforded the opportunity to participate in experiential learning has made a strong impression on Rylie; for her personal future in nursing, she said one of her goals will now be to, “advocate for people that I don’t feel like are getting the same level of treatment.” Her research is a step in that direction— a direction that leads to saving lives.
Her research is expected to be published in the Journal of Advanced Nursing.