Prognosis of cardiac arrest in home care clients and nursing home residents: A population-level retrospective cohort study

Abstract

AimTo evaluate the prognosis of 30-day survival post-cardiac arrest among patients receiving home care and nursing home residents. MethodsWe conducted a population-level retrospective cohort study of community-dwelling adults (≥18 years) who received cardiac arrest care at a hospital in Ontario, Canada, between 2006 to 2018. We linked population-based health datasets using the Home Care Dataset to identify patients receiving home care and the Continuing Care Reporting System to identify nursing home residents. We included both out-of-hospital and in-hospital cardiac arrests. We determined unadjusted and adjusted associations using logistic regression after adjusting for age and sex. We converted relative measures to absolute risks. ResultsOur cohort contained 86,836 individuals. Most arrests (55.5 %) occurred out-of-hospital, with 9,316 patients enrolled in home care and 2,394 residing in a nursing home. When compared to those receiving no support services, the likelihood of survival to 30-days was lower for those receiving home care (RD = −6.5; 95 %CI = −7.5 – −5.0), with similar results found within sub-groups of out-of-hospital (RD = −6.7; 95 %CI = −7.6 – −5.7) and in-hospital arrests (RD = −8.7; 95 %CI = −10.6 – −7.3). The likelihood of 30-day survival was lower for nursing home residents (RD = −7.2; 95 %CI = −9.3 - −5.3) with similar results found within sub-groups of out-of-hospital (RD = −8.6; 95 %CI = −10.6 – −5.7) and in-hospital arrests (RD = −5.0; 95 %CI = −7.8 – −2.1). ConclusionPatients receiving home care and nursing home residents had worse overall prognoses of survival post-cardiac arrest compared to those receiving no pre-arrest support, highlighting two medically-complex groups likely to benefit from advance care planning.