A Survey on  Do Not Attempt Resuscitation Order in Patients with Cardiopulmonary Arrest

Do not attempt resuscitation (DNAR) order is issued despite continuing the basic treatment in patients with a cardiopulmonary arrest. Resuscitation would not start if the patients have a previous request for DNAR by their physicians or relatives. In Iran, we don’t have any accreditation for DNAR order. So, this command is done informally and based on the physician individual opinion. In this study, current situations in our hospitals and the variables which medically affect in this order are evaluated. A blind standard questionnaire in DNAR order field was completed by 62% of anesthesiology and emergency medicine specialists. Data were analyzed by 16th version of SPSS software. Totally, 71 physicians were completed the questionnaire. In 61.4% of cases informal and verbal commands are issued. An underlying debilitating disease, a prior cardiac arrest, poor cardiac condition before recent cardiac arrest, an underlying poor prognosis disease, asystol rhythm taken more than 20 minutes are the main variables for having DNAR orders. This study showed that DNAR order is done in our hospitals not based on a formal guideline. So, we need to provide a formal protocol in conjunction with jurisprudents and other related experts.