Grant: Project Grant

Cardiac arrest is the number one cause of death in Canada. It is often the first symptom of cardiac disease for the victims. Eighty-five percent of victims collapse in their own home. This is often witnessed by a family member. Bystander cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) can improve the chance of surviving a cardiac arrest by three to four times but needs to be started quickly. In most communities, less than 30% of victims receive CPR before the ambulance arrives. Currently, only 8% of cardiac arrest victims can leave the hospital alive. Many things have been tried to improve the number of times people do CPR. So far, the only thing that really increased the number of times that someone did CPR is when 9-1-1 attendants started to give CPR instructions to callers over the phone. Unfortunately, about 25% of cardiac arrest victims gasp for air in the first few minutes. This can fool the 9-1-1 callers and attendants into thinking that the victim is still alive. 9-1-1 attendants only get a small amount of training on abnormal breathing and cardiac arrest. We first looked at all the studied published on this topic, then completed a survey of 9-1-1 attendants from across Canada about their ability to recognize abnormal breathing and cardiac arrest. Then, with the help of psychologists and education experts, we developed an innovative teaching tool which helped Ottawa 9-1-1 attendants recognize abnormal breathing. When they could do that, they could also recognize more cardiac arrest, give more CPR instructions, and save more lives. That pilot data suggests the impact of this larger multi-centre project will be to increase cardiac arrest recognition and bystander CPR rates by at least 10%, and cardiac arrest survival by 5% or more. The main goal of this project is to help 9-1-1 attendants save the lives of even more cardiac arrest victims across Canada.