title: Cardiorespiratory arrest in children (out of hospital).
abstract: BACKGROUND
  Cardiorespiratory arrest outside hospital occurs in approximately 1/10,000 children a year in resource-rich countries, with two-thirds of arrests occurring in children under 18 months of age. Approximately 45% of cases have undetermined causes, including sudden infant death syndrome. Of the rest, 20% are caused by trauma, 10% by chronic disease, and 6% by pneumonia.
  
  
  METHODS
  We conducted a systematic review aiming to answer the following clinical question: What are the effects of treatments for non-submersion out-of-hospital cardiorespiratory arrest in children? We searched: Medline, Embase, The Cochrane Library, and other important databases up to December 2009 (Clinical Evidence reviews are updated periodically, please check our website for the most up-to-date version of this review). We included harms alerts from relevant organisations such as the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and the UK Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA).
  
  
  RESULTS
  We found 15 systematic reviews, RCTs, or observational studies that met our inclusion criteria. We performed a GRADE evaluation of the quality of evidence for interventions.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  In this systematic review we present information relating to the effectiveness and safety of the following interventions: airway management and ventilation (bag-mask ventilation and intubation), bystander cardiopulmonary resuscitation, direct-current cardiac shock, hypothermia, intravenous sodium bicarbonate, standard dose of intravenous adrenaline (epinephrine), and training parents to perform resuscitation.
authors.affiliation: University of Ottawa Faculty of Medicine, Children's Hospital of Eastern Ontario, Ottawa, Ontario, Canada.
authors.forename: Hilary
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Writer
mesh_terms: D016887:Cardiopulmonary Resuscitation; D002648:Child; D006323:Heart Arrest / Q000628:therapy; D006801:Humans