Abstract Body: Introduction: Out of hospital cardiac arrest (OHCA) is a leading cause of death in the United States, with upwards of 360,000 OHCAs annually. Receiving bystander cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) almost doubles an individual’s odds of survival compared to those who don’t receive bystander CPR. Unfortunately, in the US, bystander application of CPR only occurs in 40% of OHCA. Improving the rate of bystander CPR and AED use will improve survival rates for OHCA.
Minoritized populations experience worse outcomes from OHCA. Compared to non-Hispanic whites, they are less likely to survive to hospital discharge. A cross-sectional study of witnessed OHCA patients found that Black and Hispanic patients had lower rates of bystander CPR. Less is known about disparities in care for Asian American persons who experience OHCA. Studies using the Resuscitation Outcomes Consortium Epidemiologic Registry (ROC) and the Cardiac Arrest Registry to Enhance Survival (CARES) have concluded discrepant results, with ROC finding that Asian Americans were less likely to receive bystander CPR and CARES finding that they were just as likely to receive bystander CPR compared to non-Hispanic Whites. To that end, we sought to evaluate the association between bystander CPR and Asian race after witnessed OHCA.
Objective: To evaluate the association between race/ethnicity and the odds of receiving bystander cardiopulmonary resuscitation (bCPR) after witnessed out-of-hospital cardiac arrest (OHCA).
Methods: Data were obtained from the National Emergency Medical Services Information System (NEMSIS) database for adults (≥18 years) with a witnessed non-traumatic OHCA in the year 2022. Patients were separated into two groups: Non-Hispanic White and Asians. The primary outcome was the odds of receiving bCPR. Exclusions included traumatic etiology, do-not-resuscitate orders, and arrests witnessed by healthcare providers. Pearson’s chi-square test was used to test significance.
Results: A total of 73,215 witnessed OHCA activations were included in this study. Overall, bystander CPR rates were lower for the Asian group (59.8%) compared to the Non-Hispanic White group (65.0%). Pearson’s chi-square test showed a statistically significant difference between the bCPR rates of the Asian group and Non-Hispanic White group, with a p-value of less than 0.001.
Conclusion: Racial/ethnic disparities exist for Asian individuals in the odds of receiving bCPR after a witnessed non-traumatic OHCA.