Scottish Out-of-Hospital Cardiac Arrest data linkage project: 2018-2019 results

Background

Summary of main findings for 2018/19

• The number of patients with OHCA where resuscitation was attempted by the Scottish Ambulance Service was lower in 2018/19 at 3,115 compared to 3,484 in 2017/18. The data linkage completion rate was similar to the previous year with 86.2% of incidents linked.
• The mean patient age (66 years) and the male/female split (64% vs 36%) remain stable.
• The percentage of OHCA occurring in each of the SIMD quintiles has remained similar with 15% of arrests occurring in SIMD 5 (least deprived) compared with 26% in SIMD 1 (most deprived).
• CPR familiarisation through the Save a Life for Scotland Partnership continues to increase yearly since its inception in October 2015 with numbers currently sitting at 519,861 face-to-face contacts.
• Bystander CPR rates increased to 64.0% in 2018/19 compared with 55.5% in 2017/18 and the percentage of patients with ‘Return of Spontaneous Circulation’ rose to 30.3% compared to 23.3% in 2017/18.
• Survival at 30 days has increased to 10.2% of all worked arrests in 2018/19 compared to 8.3% from the previous year. Expressed as the number of survivors per million of the Scottish population, this equates to 59 survivors/million, an increase from 53 survivors/million in 2017/18.
• Deprivation continues to have a significant effect on the likelihood of receiving bystander CPR. Those in the most deprived quintile (SIMD 1) are 12.6% less likely to receive bystander CPR compared to those in the least deprived areas (SIMD 5). When adjusted for sex, age and urban/rural location, those in SIMD 1 areas are 19% less likely to receive bystander CPR compared to SIMD 5 areas.
• There was a trend towards increased use of public access defibrillators by bystanders during 2018/19.