Cardiopulmonary resuscitation performed by trained providers and shorter time to emergency medical team arrival increased patients’ survival rates in Istra County, Croatia: a retrospective study

Aim To assess the effect of the time for emergency medical services (EMS) arrival on resuscitation outcome in the transition period of the EMS system in Istra County. Methods This retrospective study analyzed the data from 1440 patients resuscitated between 2011 and 2017. The effect of demographic data, period of the year, time for EMS arrival, initial cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) provider, initial cardiac rhythm, and airway management method on CPR outcome was assessed with multivariate logistic regression.Results Survivors were younger than non-survivors (median of 66 vs 70 years, P < 0.001) and had shorter time for EMS arrival (median of 6 vs 8 min, P < 0.001). The proportion of non-survivors was significantly higher when initial basic life support (BLS) was performed by bystanders without training (83.8%) or when no CPR was performed before EMS team arrival (87.3%) than when BLS was performed by medical professionals (66.8%) (P < 0.001). Sex, airway management, and tourist season had no effect on CPR outcome. Conclusion Since the time for arrival and level of CPR provider training showed a significant effect on CPR outcome, further organizational effort should be made to reduce the time for EMS arrival and increase the number of individuals trained in BLS

To ventilate or not to ventilate during bystander CPR — A EuReCa TWO analysis

Background: Survival after out-of-hospital cardiac arrest (OHCA) is still low. For every minute without resuscitation the likelihood of survival decreases. One critical step is initiation of immediate, high quality cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR). The aim of this subgroup analysis of data collected for the European Registry of Cardiac Arrest Study number 2 (EuReCa TWO) was to investigate the association between OHCA survival and two types of bystander CPR namely: chest compression only CPR (CConly) and CPR with chest compressions and ventilations (FullCPR). Method: In this subgroup analysis of EuReCa TWO, all patients who received bystander CPR were included. Outcomes were return of spontaneous circulation and survival to 30-days or hospital discharge. A multilevel binary logistic regression analysis with survival as the dependent variable was performed. Results: A total of 5884 patients were included in the analysis, varying between countries from 21 to 1444. Survival was 320 (8%) in the CConly group and 174 (13%) in the FullCPR group. After adjustment for age, sex, location, rhythm, cause, time to scene, witnessed collapse and country, patients who received FullCPR had a significantly higher survival rate when compared to those who received CConly (adjusted odds ration 1.46, 95% confidence interval 1.17–1.83). Conclusion: In this analysis, FullCPR was associated with higher survival compared to CConly. Guidelines should continue to emphasise the importance of compressions and ventilations during resuscitation for patients who suffer OHCA and CPR courses should continue to teach both