A comparative study of dispatcher-assisted telephone-cardiopulmonary resuscitation and smart phone APPs for conducting cardiopulmonary resuscitation

Abstract

Objective The purpose of our study was to assess the onset effect of bystander CPR assisted by a smart phone APP or by a dispatcher. Methods 74 volunteers, without any experience in basic life support measures, was randomly divided into three groups: no-assisted group(n=13), dispatcher-assisted group(n=34)and smart phone APP-assisted group(n=27). Under the condition of a simulative SCA, a QCPR mannequin was used to record the hands-off time, hand placement, rate, depth and complete chest recoil after each compression of the three different groups to make analysis. The noassisted group didn't receive any CPR instruction; the dispatcher-assisted group was instructed to do CPR through the voice from the telephone; the smartphone APP-assisted group was instructed by a preset Android smart phone CPR APP which guided the volunteers to do CPR step by step by words, voice and animations. Rank sum test analysis of each group using SPSS19.0 software. Results In aspects of hands-off time(1.0 second vs. 1.5 seconds vs. 5.0 seconds), mean rate of compression(121.0 per minute vs. 127.5 per minute vs. 58.0 per minute), percentage of correct compression rate(99.0% vs. 98.0% vs. 0.0%)and mean depth of compression(33.0 cm vs. 26.5 cm vs. 16.0 cm), smart phone APP-assisted group performed as well as dispatcher-assisted group(P>0.05)and was superior to noassisted group(P<0.05). Conclusion In terms of increasing the quality of CPR, the smart phone APP can play the same role as dispatcher’s telephone guidance, so as to enhance the effect of cardiopul-monary resuscitation. Key words: Cardiopulmonary resuscitation(CPR); First witness; Dispatcher-assisted telephone-cardiopulmonary resuscitation(T-CPR); Smartphone APP-assisted; Contrastive analysis