Epidemiology and outcomes from non-traumatic out-of-hospital cardiac arrest in Korea: A nationwide observational study.
OBJECTIVE
We aimed to describe the epidemiological features and to determine the predictors for survival to discharge of non-traumatic out-of-hospital cardiac arrest (OHCA) in Korea.


METHODS
A nationwide Utstein style OHCA database (2006-2007) was constructed from ambulance records and hospital medical record review. Cases were enrolled when they were non-traumatic OHCA with presumed cardiac aetiology. Using the population census (2005), we calculated age-gender standardized incidence rates (SIR) and mortality (SMR). We modelled a multivariate logistic regression analysis to determine the effect of risk factors on hospital outcomes.


RESULTS
The total number of EMS-assessed non-traumatic OHCA patients was 19045. The SIR was 20.9 (2006) and 22.2 (2007) per 100000 and survival-to-discharge rate was 2.3% for EMS-assessed non-traumatic OHCA, and was 3.5% for the resuscitation-attempted group. From a multivariate logistic regression analysis, witnessed arrest, and shorter basic life support (BLS) and EMS intervals turned out to be significant predictors of good outcome in the resuscitation-attempted group.


CONCLUSIONS
From a nationwide OHCA cohort, the incidence of EMS-assessed non-traumatic OHCA was found to be low. Survival-to-discharge rate in the resuscitation-attempted group was 3.5%, which was significantly associated with witnessed arrest, and shorter BLS and EMS intervals.
Ahn
Ki Ok
KO
Center for Education and Training of EMS and Rescue, Seoul Fire Academy, Seoul, Republic of Korea. arendt75@gmail.com
Shin
Sang Do
SD
Suh
Gil Joon
GJ
Cha
Won Chul
WC
Song
Kyoung Jun
KJ
Kim
Soo Jin
SJ
Lee
Eui Jung
EJ
Ong
Marcus Eng Hock
ME
D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D016887:Cardiopulmonary Resuscitation / Q000379:methods* / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D002648:Child; D002675:Child, Preschool; D004632:Emergency Medical Services / Q000379:methods / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D005260:Female; D006323:Heart Arrest / Q000453:epidemiology* / Q000628:therapy; D006801:Humans; D015994:Incidence; D007223:Infant; D007231:Infant, Newborn; D007723:Korea / Q000453:epidemiology; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D011159:Population Surveillance / Q000379:methods*; D012189:Retrospective Studies; D015996:Survival Rate / Q000639:trends; D016896:Treatment Outcome; D055815:Young Adult