An Educational Program to Improve Cardiac Arrest Diagnostic Accuracy of Ambulance Telecommunicators

Summary

Cardiac arrest is the number one cause of death in Canada. It is often the first symptom of cardiac disease for the victims. Eighty-five percent of victims collapse in their own home. Fifty percent collapse in the presence of a family member. Bystander cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) can improve the chance to survive a cardiac arrest by three to four times, but needs to be started quickly. In most communities, less than 30% of victims receive CPR before the ambulance arrives. Currently, only 8% of cardiac arrest victims can leave the hospital alive.

Many things have been tried to improve the number of times people do CPR. So far, the only thing that really increased the number of times that someone did CPR is when 9-1-1 attendants started to give CPR instructions to callers over the phone. The only problem is that about 25% of cardiac arrest victims gasp for air in the first few minutes. This can fool the 9-1-1 callers and attendants into thinking that the victim is still alive.

The investigators have looked at all the studies on how to help 9-1-1 attendants to recognize abnormal breathing over the phone. The investigators have also learned what should be taught after finishing a large survey with 9-1-1 attendants from across Canada. This survey was done with the help of psychologists and other education experts. It measured the impact of attitudes, social pressures, and 9-1-1 attendants' perceived control over their ability to recognize abnormal breathing and cardiac arrest. Then the investigators developed a teaching tool which helped Ottawa 9-1-1 attendants recognize abnormal breathing. When they could do that, they could also recognize more cardiac arrest.

The main goal of this project is to use the tool developed in Ottawa in more centres to help 9-1-1 attendants save the lives of even more cardiac arrest victims across Canada.

Conditions

• Heart Arrest
• Heart Arrest, Out-Of-Hospital
• Cardiac Arrest
• Death, Sudden, Cardiac
• Cardiac Arrest, Sudden
• Cardiopulmonary Arrest

Interventions

OTHER

Educational Intervention

Additional training provided to ambulance telecommunicators in participating sites to help increase recognition of agonal breathing in the presence of out-of-hospital cardiac arrest.

Sponsors & Collaborators

• Ontario Ministry of Health and Long Term Care

  collaborator OTHER_GOV

• BC Emergency Health Services

  collaborator UNKNOWN

• Medacom Atlantic

  collaborator UNKNOWN

• Alberta Health services

  collaborator OTHER

• Emergency Health Services Nova Scotia

  collaborator UNKNOWN

• Health PEI

  collaborator UNKNOWN

• Providence Health Care, British Columbia

  collaborator UNKNOWN

• Ottawa Hospital Research Institute

  lead OTHER

Principal Investigators

• Christian Vaillancourt, MD, MSc · Ottawa Hospital Research Institute

Eligibility

Min Age

16 Years

Sex

ALL

Healthy Volunteers

No

Timeline & Regulatory

Start

2020-12-14

Primary Completion

2025-12-31

Completion

2025-12-31

Countries

• Canada

Study Locations