Augmented survival of out-of-hospital cardiac arrest victims with the use of mobile phones for emergency communication under the DA-CPR protocol getting information from callers beside the victim

Abstract

PurposeTo investigate the impacts of emergency calls made using mobile phones on the quality of dispatcher-assisted cardiopulmonary resuscitation (DA-CPR) and survival from out-of-hospital cardiac arrests (OHCAs) that were not witnessed by emergency medical service (EMS). MethodsIn this prospective study, we collected data for 2530 DA-CPR-attempted medical emergency cases (517 using mobile phones and 2013 using landline phones) and 2980 non-EMS-witnessed OHCAs (600 using mobile phones and 2380 using landline phones). Time factors and quality of DA-CPR, backgrounds of callers and outcomes of OHCAs were compared between mobile and landline phone groups. ResultsEmergency calls are much more frequently placed beside the arrest victim in mobile phone group (52.7% vs. 17.2%). The positive predictive value and acceptance rate of DA-CPR in mobile phone group (84.7% and 80.6%, respectively) were significantly higher than those in landline group (79.2% and 70.9%). The proportion of good-quality bystander CPR in mobile phone group was significantly higher than that in landline group (53.5% vs. 45.0%). When analysed for all non-EMS-witnessed OHCAs, rates of 1-month survival and 1-year neurologically favourable survival in mobile phone group (7.8% and 3.5%, respectively) were higher than those in landline phone group (4.6% and 1.9%; p<0.05). Multiple logistic regression analysis, including other backgrounds, revealed that mobile phone calls were associated with increased 1-month survival in the subgroup of OHCAs receiving bystander CPR (adjusted odds ratio, 1.84; 95% CI, 1.15–2.92). ConclusionEmergency calls made using mobile phones are likely to augment the survival from OHCAs by improving DA-CPR.