Resuscitation Care in Out-Of-Hospital Cardiac Arrest: a Survey of the Emergency Medical Services Personnel in the Republic of Crimea

Abstract

Introduction. The choice of the ways for optimizing management of out-of-hospital cardiac arrest by emergency medical services (EMS) should be based on the evidence from existing practice of resuscitation care. The study was aimed at evaluating personal experience of cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) performance, timing of last training in resuscitation and level of self-perceived knowledge and skills of CPR among the employees of the EMS of the Republic of Crimea, as well as to assess their beliefs on significance of individual CPR procedures in terms of influence on success of resuscitation and to study their perceptions on factors that may have positive or negative impact on effectiveness of resuscitation care.Material and methods. An anonymous survey of the EMS personnel of the Republic of Crimea was conducted in July–December 2019. The questionnaire was utilized to collect demographic data, information on experience of conducting CPR for the last year, on a current practice of CPR debriefings and timing of last CPR training. The participants assessed their knowledge and skills of CPR and their perception of influence of early implementation of individual CPR procedures on success of resuscitation on a 5-point Likert scale, and indicated factors, that may limit or enhance the effectiveness of resuscitation.Results. A total of 251 specialist of the EMS participated in the survey, including 63 physicians, 129 feldshers and 4 nurses of ambulance teams, 45 dispatchers and 5 senior officers of the EMS stations, which corresponds to 28.8% of physicians, 13.0% of feldsher/nursing staff and 17.4% of dispatcher specialists of the republic. Percentage of male respondents was 35.5%, mean age — 41.5 years, mean duration of EMS work experience — 15.5 years. The mean declared number of cases of CPR conducted in the last 12 months was 2.2 (range: 0–20), and 23.5% specialists of the ambulance teams have not participated in any CPR attempt over the last year. About 60.2% respondents were trained in CPR within the last year. When compared to other specialists of ambulance teams, feldshers who work alone (without a coworker), were significantly less commonly performing a real-life resuscitation (p=0.008) or receiving training in CPR (p=0.020). Dispatchers were least covered with resuscitation training (only 33.3% were trained within the last year) and had the lowest level of CPR knowledge and skills. 25.9% of the specialists had an erroneous judgement that early drug administration and/or tracheal intubation have higher influence on success of resuscitation when compared to chest compressions and/or defibrillation. The level of knowledge and skills of CPR depend on the timing of last training (p<0.001).Conclusions. The experience of participation in real-life attempts of CPR is severely limited for considerable part of the EMS employees, and many specialists have not been trained in resuscitation for a long time. The perceptions of the EMS specialists regarding the importance of individual CPR procedures are not always compliant with the statements of current international CPR guidelines. In order to enhance the effectiveness of resuscitation care in the Republic of Crimea, it is advisable to monitor the coverage of the EMS employees with resuscitation training and the rates of their participation in resuscitation attempts, as well as to perform additional targeted training in CPR, in particular, using alternative methods of education.