Out-of-hospital cardiac arrests terminated without full resuscitation attempts: Characteristics and regional variability

Abstract

Background: Out-of-hospital cardiac arrest (OHCA) investigations may elect to exclude cases with resuscitation terminated for reasons other than a full resuscitative attempt. We sought to examine characteristics of these cases and regional variability in classification.

Methods: Using the North American Resuscitation Outcomes Consortium Epistry, we included adult emergency medical services (EMS)-treated cases, examining the rationale ("futility", do-not resuscitate [DNR] order, "verbal directive", or "obvious death") and timing of resuscitation termination, and the timing of ROSC among hospital-discharge survivors. We tested regional variability in EMS patient arrival-to-termination intervals with one-way ANOVA.

Results: Of 63,554 included cases, 27,232 were declared dead in the prehospital setting: (1) 23,009 (36%) for futility (after a median of 24 minutes [IQR 19-31] of professional resuscitation); (2) 1622 (2.6%) for a DNR order (at 6.3 minutes [IQR 3.0-11]); (3) 1018 (1.6%) for a verbal directive (at 12 minutes [IQR 7.0-17]); and, (4) 1583 (2.5%) for obvious death (at 5.4 minutes [IQR 3.0-9.0]). The EMS patient arrival-to-ROSC interval among hospital-discharge survivors was 7.7 (3.8-13) minutes. Among regions, 0.20-12% and 0.20-5.3% were terminated to due to obvious death or verbal directives, respectively. There were significant regional differences in the EMS patient arrival-to-termination interval for futility (p < 0.010) and obvious death (p < 0.010).

Conclusion: There is significant variation in the rationale and interval until termination of resuscitation between regions. Cases terminated due to obvious death or DNR orders/verbal directives are often treated with similar durations of resuscitation as survivors. These data highlight a considerable risk of bias in between-region comparisons or observational analyses.

Keywords: Cardiopulmonary resuscitation; Heart arrest; Out-of-hospital cardiac arrest; Resuscitation; Termination of resuscitation.