Impact of the 2015 European guidelines for resuscitation on traumatic cardiac arrest outcomes and prehospital management: a French nationwide interrupted time-series analysis.

AIM: To evaluate the impact of the 2015 European Resuscitation Council (ERC) guidelines on patient outcomes following traumatic cardiac arrest (TCA) and on advanced life support interventions carried out by physician-staffed ambulances.

METHODS: Data of TCA patients aged ≥18 years were extracted from the French nationwide cardiac arrest registry. A pre- (2011-2015) and a post-publication period (2016-2020) were defined. In the guidelines, a specific TCA management algorithm was introduced to prioritise the treatment of reversible causes. Its impact was evaluated using adjusted interrupted time series analysis.

RESULTS: 4,980 patients were treated (2,145 during the pre-publication period and 2,739 during the post-publication period). There was no significant change in the rates of prehospital ROSC (22.4% vs. 20.2%, p=0.07 in the pre- and post- intervention respectively), survival (1.4% vs. 1.4%, p=0.87) or good neurological outcome (71.4% vs. 66.7%, p=0.93) or in the incidence of organ donation (1.6% vs. 1.3%, p=0.50). There were nonsignificant changes in the adjusted temporal trend for ROSC (aOR 0.88; 95% CI [0.77;1.00]), survival (aOR 1.34; 95% CI [0.83;2.17]), good neurological outcome (aOR 1.57; 95% CI [0.82;3.05]), and organ donation (aOR 1.06; 95% CI [0.71;1.60]). The use of intraosseous catheters (13.0% vs. 19.2%, p<0.001), external haemorrhage control measures (23.9% vs. 64.8%, p<0.001), bilateral chest decompression (13.7% vs. 16.5%, p=0.009), and packed red cell transfusion (2.7% vs. 6.5%, p<0.001) increased in the post-publication period.

CONCLUSIONS: Despite the increased frequency of trauma rescue interventions performed by on-scene physicians, no change in patient-centred outcomes was associated with the publication of the 2015 ERC guidelines in France.