Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
. 2021 Aug 13:7:100155.
doi: 10.1016/j.resplu.2021.100155. eCollection 2021 Sep.

Immediate psychological impact on citizen responders dispatched through a mobile application to out-of-hospital cardiac arrests

Astrid Rolin Kragh  1   2 , Linn Andelius  1   2 , Mads Tofte Gregers  1   2 , Julie Samsøe Kjølbye  1   2 , Anne Juul Jørgensen  1   2 , Anders Korsgaard Christensen  3 , Line Zinckernagel  4 , Christian Torp-Pedersen  5   6 , Fredrik Folke  1   2   7 , Carolina Malta Hansen  1   2   7
Affiliations

Immediate psychological impact on citizen responders dispatched through a mobile application to out-of-hospital cardiac arrests

Astrid Rolin Kragh et al. Resusc Plus. .

Abstract

Background: Activating citizen responders may increase survival after out-of-hospital cardiac arrest (OHCA) but could induce significant psychological impact on the citizen responders. We examined psychological impact among citizen responders within the first days following resuscitation attempt.

Methods and results: A mobile phone application to activate citizen responders to perform cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) was implemented in the Capital Region of Denmark. All dispatched citizen responders (September 2017 to May 2019) received a survey 90 minutes after an alarm, including self-rating of perceived psychological impact on a scale of 1-4.Of 5,395 included citizen responders, most (88.6%) completed the survey within 24 hours.The majority reported no psychological impact (68.6%), whereas 24.7%, 5.5% and 1.2% reported low, moderate, or severe impact, respectively. Severe impact was more commonly reported in the following groups: No CPR training (3.8% vs 1.2%, p = 0.02), age < 30 years (2.0% vs 0.9%, p < 0.001), female sex (1.8% vs 0.7%, p < 0.001), provided CPR (2.7% vs 1.0%, p < 0.001), and arrived prior to the emergency medical services (EMS) (2.8% vs 0.7%, p < 0.001) compared to no to moderate impact.Chi square test, Mann-Whitney U test, Fischer's exact test and a logistic regression model were used to assess differences in psychological impact across groups.

Conclusion: Very few citizen responders reported severe psychological impact. Lack of prior CPR training, younger age, female sex, performing CPR and arrival prior to the EMS were associated with greater psychological impact. Though very few citizen responders reported severe impact, the possibility of professional debriefing should be considered in citizen responder programs.

Keywords: AED, Automated external defibrillator; App; CPR; CPR, Cardiopulmonary resuscitation; Citizen responders; EMS, Emergency Medical Services; OHCA; OHCA, Out-of-hospital cardiac arrest.

PubMed Disclaimer

Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper.

Figures

Fig. 1
Fig. 1
Citizen Responder Flowchart.
Fig. 2
Fig. 2
Psychological Impact According to Citizen Responder Arrival, Provision of CPR and First Aid Course.
Fig. 3
Fig. 3
Psychological Impact According to Citizen Responder Demographics.
Fig. 4
Fig. 4
Forest plot presenting unadjusted odds ratios (OR) of the associations between severe psychological impact (4–5 on the survey) and citizen responder demographics and involvement in the resuscitation attempt.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

References

    1. Hansen C.M., Kragholm K., Granger C.B. The role of bystanders, first responders, and emergency medical service providers in timely defibrillation and related outcomes after out-of-hospital cardiac arrest: Results from a statewide registry. Resuscitation. 2015;96:303–309. doi: 10.1016/j.resuscitation.2015.09.002. - DOI - PubMed
    1. Hansen S.M., Hansen C.M., Folke F. Bystander Defibrillation for Out-of-Hospital Cardiac Arrest in Public vs Residential Locations. JAMA Cardiol. 2017;2:507. doi: 10.1001/jamacardio.2017.0008. - DOI - PMC - PubMed
    1. Karlsson L., Hansen C.M., Vourakis C. Improving bystander defibrillation in out-of-hospital cardiac arrests at home. Eur Heart J Acute Cardiovasc Care. 2020 doi: 10.1177/2048872619891675. Published online March 13. - DOI - PubMed
    1. Valeriano A., Van Heer S., de Champlain F., Brooks S. Crowdsourcing to save lives: A scoping review of bystander alert technologies for out-of-hospital cardiac arrest. Resuscitation. 2020 doi: 10.1016/j.resuscitation.2020.10.035. Published online November 11. - DOI - PubMed
    1. Oving I., Masterson S., Tjelmeland I.B.M. First-response treatment after out-of-hospital cardiac arrest: a survey of current practices across 29 countries in Europe. Scand J Trauma Resusc Emerg Med. 2019;27 doi: 10.1186/s13049-019-0689-0. - DOI - PMC - PubMed

LinkOut - more resources