Organ Support Therapy in the Intensive Care Unit and Return to Work in Out-of-Hospital Cardiac Arrest Survivors: a Nationwide Cohort Study

AIM: With increased survival after out-of-hospital cardiac arrest (OHCA), impact of the post-resuscitation course has become important. Among 30-day OHCA survivors, we investigated associations between organ support therapy in the Intensive Care Unit (ICU) and return to work.

METHODS: This Danish nationwide cohort-study included 30-day-OHCA-survivors who were employed prior to arrest. We linked OHCA data to information on in-hospital care and return to work. For patients admitted to an ICU and based on renal replacement therapy (RRT), cardiovascular support and mechanical ventilation, we assessed the prognostic value of organ support therapies in multivariable Cox regression models.

RESULTS: Of 1,087 30-day survivors, 212 (19.5%) were treated in an ICU with 0-1 types of organ support, 494 (45.4%) with support of two organs, 26 (2.4%) with support of three organs and 355 (32.7%) were not admitted to an ICU. Return to work increased with decreasing number of organs supported, from 53.8% (95% CI: 49.5-70.1%) in patients treated with both RRT, cardiovascular support and mechanical ventilation to 88.5% (95% CI: 85.1-91.8%) in non-ICU-patients. In 732 ICU-patients, ICU-patients with support of 3 organs had significantly lower adjusted hazard ratios (HR) of returning to work (0.50 [95% CI: 0.30-0.85] compared to ICU-patients with support of 0-1 organ. The corresponding HR was 0.48 [95% CI: 0.30-0.78] for RRT alone.

CONCLUSIONS: In 30-day survivors of OHCA, number of organ support therapies and in particular need of RRT were associated with reduced rate of return to work, although more than half of these latter patients still returned to work.