Cardiopulmonary Resuscitation Outcomes of Patientswith COVID-19; a One-Year Survey

Assessing cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) outcomes of patients with COVID-19 and em-ploying effective strategies for their improvement are essential. This study is designed in this regard.

This cross-sectional study was conducted between January 20, 2020 and January 20, 2021 in the emergency de-partments of two hospitals in Hamadan and Kermanshah, Iran. Participants were 487 patients with confirmedCOVID-19 and cardiac arrest (CA) who had undergone CPR during the study period. Data were collected us-ing the available CPR documentation forms developed based on the Utstein Style and analyses were performedusing Chi-square, Fisher’s exact, and Mann-Whitney U tests and the logistic regression analysis.

Par-ticipants’ mean age was 69.31±14.73 years and most of them were male (61.8%) and suffered from at least oneunderlying disease (58.1%). The rate of total and in-hospital CA was 9.67% and 9.39%, respectively. The mostprevalent first documented rhythm was asystole (67.9%) and the highest responsivity to CPR was for shockablerhythms. The rate of the return of spontaneous circulation (ROSC) was 9% and the rate of survival to hospitaldischarge was 2%. The significant predictors of CPR success were age (p = 0.035), epinephrine administrationtime interval (p = 0.00), CPR duration (p = 0.00), and First documented rhythm (p = 0.009).

The rateof in-hospital CA among studied COVID-19 cases was 9.39% with 9% ROSC and 2% survival to hospital dischargerates after CPR. Primary CPR success among patients with COVID-19 was poor, particularly among those withasystole and bradycardia. It seems that old age and improper doses of epinephrine can reduce CPR success.