The effect of transport on quality of cardiopulmonary resuscitation in out-of-hospital cardiac arrest.

INTRODUCTION: Most manikin and clinical studies have found decreased quality of CPR during transport to hospital. We wanted to study quality of CPR before and during transport for out-of-hospital cardiac arrest patients and also whether quality of CPR before initiation of transport was different from the quality in patients only receiving CPR on scene.

MATERIALS AND METHODS: Quality of CPR was prospectively registered with a modified defibrillator for consecutive cases of out-of-hospital cardiac arrest in three ambulance services during 2002-2005. Ventilations were registered via changes in transthoracic impedance and chest compressions were measured with an extra chest compression pad placed on the patients' sternum. Paired t-tests were used to analyse quality of CPR before vs. during transport with ongoing CPR. Unpaired t-tests were used to compare CPR quality prior to transport to CPR quality in patients with CPR terminated on site.

RESULTS: Quality of CPR did not deteriorate during transport, but as previously reported overall quality of CPR was substandard. Quality of CPR performed on site was significantly better when transport was not initiated with ongoing CPR compared to episodes with initiation of transport during CPR: fraction of time without chest compressions was 0.45 and 0.53 (p<0.001), compression depth 37 mm and 34 mm (p=0.04), and number of chest compressions per minute 61 and 56 (p=0.01), respectively.

CONCLUSION: CPR quality was sub-standard both before and during transport. Early decision to transport might have negatively affected CPR quality from the early stages of resuscitation.