survival after in-hospital cardiopulmonary resuscitation in a major referral center during 2001-2008

despite efforts to save more people suffering from in-hospital cardiac arrest, rates of survival after in-hospital cardiopulmonary resuscitation (cpr) are no better today than they were more than a decade ago. this study was undertaken to assess the demographics, clinical parameters and outcomes of patients undergoing cpr by the code blue team at our center during 2001 to 2008. data were collected retrospectively from adult patients (n=2262) who underwent cpr. clinical outcomes of interest were survival at the end of cpr and survival at discharge from the hospital. factors associated with survival were evaluated using binomial and chi square tests. of the patients included (n=2262), 741 patients (32.8%) had successful cpr. the number of male patients requiring cpr was more than females in need of the procedure. the majority of patients requiring cpr were older than 60 years (56.4±17.9). the number of successful cpr cases in long-day shift (7:00 to 19:00) was more than that in the night shift (19:00 to 7:00). furthermore, 413 (18.4%) cases were resuscitated on holidays and 1849 (81.7%) on the working days. the duration of cpr was 10 min or less in 710 (31.4%) cases. cardiopulmonary resuscitations which lasted less than 10 minutes were associated with better outcomes. the findings of the present study indicate that some manageable factors including the duration of cpr, working shift, working day (holiday or non-holiday) could affect the cpr outcomes. the findings might also be taken as evidence to suggest that the allocation of more personnel in each shift especially in night shifts and holidays, planning to increase the personnel's cpr skills, and decreasing the waste time would result in the improvement of cpr outcome.