Prehospital cardiopulmonary resuscitation duration and neurological outcome after out-of-hospital cardiac arrest among children by location of arrest: a Nationwide cohort study

Abstract

Abstract Background Little is known about the associations between the duration of prehospital cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) by emergency medical services (EMS) and outcomes among paediatric patients with out-of-hospital cardiac arrests (OHCAs). We investigated these associations and the optimal prehospital EMS CPR duration by the location of arrests. Methods We included paediatric patients aged 0–17 years with OHCAs before EMS arrival who were transported to medical institutions after resuscitation by bystanders or EMS personnel. We excluded paediatric OHCA patients for whom CPR was not performed, who had cardiac arrest after EMS arrival, whose EMS CPR duration were 30 min) in both groups (1.4% [6/417] in residential locations and 0.6% [1/170] in public locations). Conclusions A longer prehospital EMS CPR duration is independently associated with a lower proportion of patients with a favourable neurological outcome. The association between prehospital EMS CPR duration and neurological outcome differed significantly by location of arrests.

Keywords

• Cardiac arrest
• Paediatric
• Prehospital EMS CPR duration
• Favourable neurological outcome