Activation of Citizen Responders to Out-of-Hospital Cardiac Arrest During the COVID-19 Outbreak in Denmark 2020

Mads Christian Tofte Gregers*, Linn Andelius, Carolina Malta Hansen, Astrid Rolin Kragh, Christian Torp-Pedersen, Helle Collatz Christensen, Julie Samsoee Kjoelbye, Ulla Væggemose, Erika Frischknecht Christensen, Fredrik Folke

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to journalJournal articleResearchpeer-review

6 Citations (Scopus)
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Abstract

Background Little is known about how COVID-19 influenced engagement of citizen responders dispatched to out-of-hospital cardiac arrest (OHCA) by a smartphone application. The objective was to describe and analyze the Danish Citizen Responder Program and bystander interventions (both citizen responders and nondispatched bystanders) during the first COVID-19 lockdown in 2020. Methods and Results All OHCAs from January 1, 2020, to June 30, 2020, with citizen responder activation in 2 regions of Denmark were included. We compared citizen responder engagement for OHCA in the nonlockdown period (January 1, 2020, to March 10, 2020, and April 21, 2020, to June 30, 2020) with the lockdown period (March 11, 2020, to April 20, 2020). Data are displayed in the order lockdown versus nonlockdown period. Bystander cardiopulmonary resuscitation rates did not differ in the 2 periods (99% versus 92%; P=0.07). Bystander defibrillation (9% versus 14%; P=0.4) or return-of-spontaneous circulation (23% versus 23%; P=1.0) also did not differ. A similar amount of citizen responders accepted alarms during the lockdown (6 per alarm; interquartile range, 6) compared with the nonlockdown period (5 per alarm; interquartile range, 5) (P=0.05). More citizen responders reported performing chest-compression-only cardiopulmonary resuscitation during lockdown compared with nonlockdown (79% versus 59%; P=0.0029), whereas fewer performed standardized cardiopulmonary resuscitation, including ventilations (19% versus 38%; P=0.0061). Finally, during lockdown, more citizen responders reported being not psychologically affected by attending an OHCA compared with nonlockdown period (68% versus 56%; P<0.0001). Likewise, fewer reported being mildly affected during lockdown (26%) compared with nonlockdown (35%) (P=0.003). Conclusions The COVID-19 lockdown in Denmark was not associated with decreased bystander-initiated resuscitation in OHCAs attended by citizen responders.

Original languageEnglish
Article numbere024140
JournalJournal of the American Heart Association
Volume11
Issue number6
ISSN2047-9980
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 15 Mar 2022

Keywords

  • COVID-19
  • Citizen Responder Program
  • out-of-hospital cardiac arrest
  • Denmark/epidemiology
  • COVID-19/epidemiology
  • Disease Outbreaks
  • Humans
  • Cardiopulmonary Resuscitation/methods
  • Out-of-Hospital Cardiac Arrest/epidemiology
  • Retrospective Studies
  • Emergency Medical Services/statistics & numerical data
  • Communicable Disease Control

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