The characteristics of patients who survive out-of-hospital cardiac arrest (OHCA) are incompletely known. The characteristics of survivors of OHCA during a period of 16 years in Sweden are described.
All the patients included in the Swedish Cardiac Arrest Registry between 1992 and 2007 in whom cardiopulmonary resuscitation was attempted and who were alive after 1 month were included in the survey.
In all, 2432 survivors were registered. Information on initial rhythm at their first ECG recording was missing in 11%. Of the remaining 2165 survivors, 80% had a shockable rhythm and 20% had a non-shockable rhythm. Only a minority with a shockable rhythm among the bystander-witnessed cases were defibrillated within 5 min after cardiac arrest. This proportion did not change during the entry period. Among survivors found in a non-shockable rhythm, the majority were bystander-witnessed cases and a few had a delay from cardiac arrest to ambulance arrival of