Purpose of the study:
Cardiac arrest research raises important ethical issues. Media coverage of trials may influence public perception. The aim of this project was to identify and summarise media reports of the PARAMEDIC-2 trial, a randomised controlled trial of adrenaline and placebo in out-of-hospital cardiac arrest.
Materials and Methods:
We searched a media database (Nexis Library) for articles from both online media and print newspapers that referred to the PARAMEDIC-2 trial. We limited searches to the date range between March 2014 (trial start) and August 2019 (end of trial). We included only articles published in English. We extracted data using a pro-forma.
Results:
Our search identified 73 eligible articles. Most articles were published around the start of trial recruitment (n=29, 39.7%) or at the point that results were published (n=18, 24.7%). Most articles were published in UK local (n=37, 50.7%) or UK national newspapers (n=16, 21.9%).
We categorised the purpose of articles (multiple responses allowed per article) as a statement of the trial’s existence (n=46, 63.0%), a criticism of the trial methods (n=30, 41.1%), discussion of ethics (n=26, 35.6%), a report on a specific trial participant (n=9, 12.3%), or summary of trial results (n=21, 28.8%)
All articles explicitly referred to the condition being studied as cardiac arrest, but some reports also referred to heart failure (n=8, 11.0%) or heart attack (n=7, 9.6%). The active drug was reported correctly as adrenaline in all reports. Only 15 articles (20.5%) referred to the study as being randomised. Study participants were referred to as “guinea pigs” in ten articles (13.7%).
Conclusion:
PARAMEDIC-2 was widely covered by the media. Some articles contained material inaccuracies or did not describe important aspects of the trial. In designing cardiac arrest clinical trials, researchers should carefully consider strategies for communicating with the media and public.

Media coverage of the PARAMEDIC-2 trial: an analysis of print media reports

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