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Doing CPR is scary and hard, and if it's okay to teach people that while it probably won't work, it won't make things worse, and if you're lucky it'll save a life.

Transparency is a small kindness to help the people who do CPR not beat themselves up when it (probably) fails.

*illusion (sorry)

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I think the risk that people don't even start if they worry about survival rates is higher.

> it won't make things worse

Maybe you should read the article.

One of the preconditions for CPR treatment is that the patient has no heartbeat. The patient is dead, or going to be dead (depending on how you define dead) very shortly without CPR.

So, while the side effects of CPR can be pretty bad, not receiving CPR means guaranteed death.

That's what people mean when they say it won't make things worse.

The article pointed to a study noting that about half of patients who survived wished they hadn't. In other words, they found survival to be a worse outcome than death.

What did the dead people report as their most desirable outcome?

What a strange quote and data point. So 1/4 people didn't want to survive, 1/2 didn't get a chance to choose and 1/4 was happy to survive.

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