Correlation between Success Rates of Cardiopulmonary Cerebral Resuscitation and the Educational Level of the Team Leader; A Cross-Sectional Study.

OBJECTIVES To determine the correlation between the success rates of the cardiopulmonary cerebral resuscitation (CPCR) and the team's leader education and skill level in Shiraz, southern Iran. METHOD This cross-sectional study was conducted during a 6-month period from October 2007 to March 2008 in Nemazee hospital of Shiraz. We included all the patients who underwent CPCR due to cardiopulmonary arrest in emergency room of Nemazee hospital during the study period. We recorded the rates of return of spontaneous circulation (ROSC) and discharge rate (DR) of all the patients. The correlation between these two parameters and the team leader's education and skill level was evaluated. RESULTS Overall we included total number 600 patients among whom there were 349 men (58.1%) and 251(41.8%) women with mean age of 58.9±42.6.  We found that 270 (45.1%) patients had ROSC, while 330 (54.9%) patients died. Overall 18 (6.6%) patients were discharged   from hospital (3% of all participants). We found that the ROSC was significantly higher in those with specialist leader (anesthesiologist or pediatrician) when compared to those in whom CPCR was conducted by technicians (55.2% vs. 30.7%; p=0.001). CONCLUSION Conducting CPCR by persons with higher medical degrees resulted in higher rate of ROSC but not in more discharge rate. Inspite of the fact that the rate of ROSC following CPCR was closely analogous to that of developed countries, discharge rate was lower. This indicates that in our region, much more attention needs to be paid to post-resuscitation care and organizing training programs and to cover more resuscitation by CPCR team, conducted by the specialists.