Acute cardiac care & resuscitation
Evaluating the effect of a regional training initiative on bystander cardiopulmonary resuscitation rates after out-of-hospital cardiac arrest
Authors' conclusion
While we observed an increasing trend in bystander CPR rates in all regions, this change was not associated with the intervention. However, we found that the intervention was associated with a significant increase in bystander CPR rates for public OHCAs.
Study context
- Population
- Patients with out-of-hospital cardiac arrest (OHCA), excluding events at health care facilities, Cardiac Arrest Registry to Enhance Survival (CARES) data January 2022 to December 2024intervention region 15,417
- Participants
- 20,414 included patients
- Comparison
- association between the intervention and bystander cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) rates in a single large county compared with two other counties as controls
- intervention regionn = 15,417
- Outcome
- Change in bystander CPR rates associated with the intervention
- Follow-up
- Pre- vs post-intervention periods
Methodological detailssingle large county compared with two other counties as controls, logistic regression models with fixed effects for each county
- Single large county compared with two other counties as controls
- Logistic regression models with fixed effects for each county
Main finding
As reported in the abstract
Change in bystander CPR rates associated with the intervention
Intervention region
- Bystander CPR rate, pre-intervention
- 37.4%
- Bystander CPR rate, post-intervention
- 42.5%
Intervention region
Bystander CPR rate, pre-intervention37.4%
Bystander CPR rate, post-intervention42.5%
- Not significant
- adjusted intervention effect 2.94 percentage-points (95% CI −0.95 to 6.83)
- Significant increase
- adjusted intervention effect, public locations 8.59 percentage-point increase (95% CI 0.22–16.96)
Secondary outcomes
Survival to hospital discharge and neurologically intact survival (secondary) · pre- vs post-intervention periods
- No significant intervention effect
Original publication
Evaluating the effect of a regional training initiative on bystander cardiopulmonary resuscitation rates after out-of-hospital cardiac arrest. Resuscitation. Published 15 August 2026. doi:10.
Summarised from the published abstract; every number is checked against it