Medical emergencies during cardiac rehabilitation: a naturalistic inquiry of the psychologic impact on peers.

The social support provided by other patients during cardiac rehabilitation is generally thought of as beneficial. Yet being with others also predisposes individual members to risk, being negatively affected if another group member should become acutely ill. When a patient witnesses a medical emergency of a peer in a cardiac rehabilitation setting, it is not known whether the event is perceived as helpful or harmful to the patient's psychologic recovery. This study describes an inductive analysis of patients' responses during 12 patient resuscitation events that occurred in the author's cardiac rehabilitation setting between 1989 and 1993, using naturalistic inquiry as a methodologic approach.