Loading...
Over the past 30 years, some 3 million people in Sweden (current population nearly 10 million) have been trained in cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR). To determine whether starting CPR before the arrival of emergency medical services (EMS) affects 30-day survival in patients with out-of-hospital cardiac arrest, researchers reviewed data from the Swedish Cardiac Arrest Registry from 1990 to 2011.
The analysis included more than 30,000 cases of bystander-witnessed, EMS-treated cardiac arrest; 51% of cases received CPR prior to EMS arrival. Thirty-day survival was significantly higher in patients who received CPR before EMS arrival than in those who did not (10.5% vs. 4.0%). Patients who received CPR before EMS arrival were younger, more like…