title: Physician presence at out-of-hospital cardiac arrest is not necessarily the cause of improved survival.
abstract: A recent publication Hiltunen et al. on Out-of-Hospital Cardiac Arrest (OHCA) in Finland show increased survival when a physician attends an OHCA, compared to EMS. But it is likely that physicians attend OHCA patients with a different prognosis due to comorbidity or illness severity, which causes confounding by indication and is the likely cause for the physician and survival association.
authors.affiliation: Department of Community Emergency Health and Paramedic Practice, Monash University, Building H McMahons Road, Frankston, Melbourne, 3199, Australia. PFOUCHE@ambulance.nsw.gov.au.
authors.forename: Pieter Francsois
authors.initials: PF
authors.lastname: Fouche
authors.affiliation: Department of Community Emergency Health and Paramedic Practice, Monash University, Building H McMahons Road, Frankston, Melbourne, 3199, Australia.
authors.forename: Paul Andrew
authors.initials: PA
authors.lastname: Jennings
mesh_terms: D016887:Cardiopulmonary Resuscitation / Q000941:ethics* / Q000379:methods; D004632:Emergency Medical Services; D005387:Finland / Q000453:epidemiology; D006801:Humans; D058687:Out-of-Hospital Cardiac Arrest / Q000401:mortality / Q000628:therapy*; D011379:Prognosis; D012042:Registries; D015996:Survival Rate / Q000639:trends
keywords: Cardiac arrest; Confounding; Out-of-hospital