Introduction: In 1994 Diem and colleagues analysed the portrayal of CPR in popular television programs and concluded that drama programs portray an unrealistic expectation of survival from cardiac arrest. This study was conducted to see if the situation has changed in the last 25 years.
Methods: The author watched all episodes of Ambulance seasons 3 (West-Midlands, UK) and 4 (Northwest Ambulance, UK), Paramedics (Victoria, Australia) season 1, Ambulance Australia (NSW, Australia) season 2 and 9-1-1 seasons 1 and 2. Incidents of CPR were analysed for causes, treatment and outcomes.
Results: Since 1994, the composition of television programs has changed from exclusively drama programs to a predominance of reality programs.
There were 20 occurrences of CPR in the 48 episodes viewed. A substantial difference was noted in the cause of cardiac arrest in both drama and reality programs compared to real-world experience. Outcomes following CPR between drama and reality programs were significant different (p=0.02). 
There were eight episodes of cardiac arrest in 28 episodes of reality programs. The main cause of the arrest was non-medical (63%). Two patients (22%) achieved ROSC at scene and one (11%) was shown to have survived to hospital discharge. In addition, two patients were attended where paramedics considered resuscitation efforts to be futile.
In drama programs there were 12 occurrences of CPR shown in 20 episodes. The main cause of cardiac arrest was non-medical (75%). Nine patients (75%) achieved ROSC at the scene and all nine were shown or implied to have survived to hospital discharge.
Conclusions: Drama television programs continue to portray an unrealistic expectation of CPR. Reality programs provided a more realistic portrayal of outcomes following out-of-hospital cardiac arrest, although they tended to show a distorted proportion of traumatic cardiac arrest cases.

5 - Cardiopulmonary Resuscitation on Television: 25 years of miracles and misinformation