Influence of the Covid-19 pandemic on out-of-hospital cardiac arrest. A Spanish nationwide prospective cohort study.

Rosell Ortiz, FernandoFernández Del Valle, PatriciaKnox, Emily CJiménez Fábrega, XavierNavalpotro Pascual, José MMateo Rodríguez, InmaculadaRuiz Azpiazu, José IIglesias Vázquez, José AEcharri Sucunza, AlfredoAlonso Moreno, Daniel FForner Canos, Ana BGarcía-Ochoa Blanco, María JLópez Cabeza, NuriaMainar Gómez, BelénBatres Gómez, SusanaCortés Ramas, José ACeniceros Rozalén, María IGuirao Salas, Francisco AFernández Martínez, BegoñaDaponte Codina, AntonioOHSCAR investigators2025-01-072025-01-072020-10-10https://hdl.handle.net/10668/27260The influence of the COVID-19 pandemic on attendance to out-of-hospital cardiac arrest (OHCA) has only been described in city or regional settings. The impact of COVID-19 across an entire country with a high infection rate is yet to be explored. The study uses data from 8629 cases recorded in two time-series (2017/2018 and 2020) of the Spanish national registry. Data from a non-COVID-19 period and the COVID-19 period (February 1st-April 30th 2020) were compared. During the COVID-19 period, data a further analysis comparing non-pandemic and pandemic weeks (defined according to the WHO declaration on March 11th, 2020) was conducted. The chi-squared analysis examined differences in OHCA attendance and other patient and resuscitation characteristics. Multivariate logistic regression examined survival likelihood to hospital admission and discharge. The multilevel analysis examined the differential effects of regional COVID-19 incidence on these same outcomes. During the COVID-19 period, the incidence of resuscitation attempts declined and survival to hospital admission (OR = 1.72; 95%CI = 1.46-2.04; p  The pandemic, irrespective of its incidence, seems to have particularly impeded the pre-hospital phase of OHCA care. Present findings call for the need to adapt out-of-hospital care for periods of serious infection risk. ISRCTN10437835.enCovid 19Emergency servicesOut-of hospital cardiac arrestSurvivalAftercareAgedCOVID-19Cardiopulmonary ResuscitationEmergency Medical ServicesFemaleHumansIncidenceMaleMiddle AgedOut-of-Hospital Cardiac ArrestPandemicsProspective StudiesRegistriesSARS-CoV-2SpainInfluence of the Covid-19 pandemic on out-of-hospital cardiac arrest. A Spanish nationwide prospective cohort study.research article33049385open access10.1016/j.resuscitation.2020.09.0371873-1570PMC7547318https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7547318https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC7547318/pdf