Caseload and cardiopulmonary arrest management by an out-of-hospital emergency service during the COVID-19 pandemic.

OBJECTIVES

To describe the effect of the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic on the initiation of cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) in patients with out-of-hospital cardiopulmonary arrest. To compare the cardiopulmonary arrest caseload during the pandemic to the caseloads in other periods.

MATERIAL AND METHODS

Observational, prospective study based on the registry of out-of-hospital cardiopulmonary arrest emergencies the SUMMA112 ambulance service responded to between March 1 and April 30, 2020, in the Spanish autonomous community of Madrid. The registry is a Utstein-style database. The period of March-April 2019 was the control period for direct comparison with the 2020 study period and with the January-February periods of 2019 and 2020.

RESULTS

The responders undertook advanced CPR in 146 of the 313 cardiopulmonary arrest cases registered during March-April, 2020. Of the 87 patients with COVID-19-positive tests, 33 reached the hospital alive. Advanced CPR was not applied in 167 cases; the most frequent reason was prolonged circulatory collapse. Most cases (92.7%) occurred in the home. The emergency dispatchers received more calls in March and April of 2020, but they sent out a similar number of ambulances.

CONCLUSION

Mortality was higher in cases of cardiopulmonary arrest during the COVID-19 pandemic. The percentage of cases with no application of advanced CPR rose; the main reason was the amount of time between collapse and first response. Even though the number of emergency calls increased significantly, the SUMMA112 service did not dispatch more ambulances.