Acute cardiac care & resuscitation
Long-term functional outcomes and health-related quality of life following in-hospital cardiac arrest (IHCA): A systematic review
Authors' conclusion
While many IHCA survivors achieve favourable long-term outcomes, a significant proportion experience persistent impairments. Greater standardisation in outcome measurement and reporting is needed to improve comparability across studies and guide post-arrest care.
Study context
- Population
- Adults (≥18 years) who received conventional cardiopulmonary resuscitation for IHCA, with outcomes at ≥ 3 months post-IHCAThirty-nine studies from 21 countries (sample size n = 16–1539 patients)
- Outcome
- Poor neurological outcome, full cohort (pooled proportion)
Methodological detailsconducted in accordance with PRISMA 2020 guidelines, random-intercept logistic regression, narrative synthesis where pooling not feasible, risk of bias assessed using the QUIPS tool
- Conducted in accordance with PRISMA 2020 guidelines
- Random-intercept logistic regression
- Narrative synthesis where pooling not feasible
- Risk of bias assessed using the QUIPS tool
Pooled result
As reported in the abstract
Pooled proportion
78.9%
95% CI 73.5–83.4%; I2 = 95.6%
Further pooled results
Poor neurological outcome among survivors
- Among survivors
- 9.9% (95% CI 5.8-16.3%; I2 86.4%)
- Lower proportions at longer follow-up
Clinically significant anxiety and depression among survivors
- Anxiety
- 13.1% (95% CI 6.1-26.0%; I2 = 92.3%)
- Depression
- 8.1% (95% CI 4.6-13.7%; I2 = 75.7%)
Health-related quality of life (HRQoL) impairments
- Pain/discomfort
- 60.5% [95% CI 57.9-63.0%; I2 = 37.6%]
- Usual activities
- 52.6% [95% CI 50.0-55.2%; I2 = 0.0%]
- Anxiety/depression
- 49.0% [95% CI 46.4-51.6%; I2 = 0.0%]
Cognitive impairments
- Reported in one study
Risk of bias and heterogeneity
- Substantial statistical heterogeneity across most analyses
- I2 > 75%
- Most were moderate to high risk of bias
- Wide variation in outcome measures, follow-up duration, and reporting methods limited synthesis.
Original publication
Long-term functional outcomes and health-related quality of life following in-hospital cardiac arrest (IHCA): A systematic review. Resuscitation. Published 9 June 2025. doi:10.
Composed by AI from the published abstract and checked against it. How Briefs are made →