ArticleResuscitation plus2021
No apparent effect of the COVID-19 pandemic on out-of-hospital cardiac arrest incidence and outcome in Western Australia.
Article in Resuscitation plus, 2021. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 12 papers, 2 of them syntheses that pooled it.
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The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
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Who cites it
12 citing papers in PubMed, 2 syntheses or guidelines pooled it, 19 citations in OpenAlex.
- Effect of COVID-19 on the prevalence of bystanders performing cardiopulmonary resuscitation: A systematic review and meta-analysis.Cardiology journal · 2025Pooled it
- Comparison of out-of-hospital cardiac arrests during the COVID-19 pandemic with those before the pandemic: an updated systematic review and meta-analysis.Frontiers in public health · 2023Pooled it
- Out-of-Hospital Cardiac Arrest Before, During, and After the Pandemic of COVID-19.Journal of clinical medicine · 2026Article
- The quality of CPR delivered by EMS personnel wearing enhanced personal protective equipment during the COVID-19 pandemic: a retrospective cohort study from Perth, Australia.Resuscitation plus · 2025Article
- The impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on resuscitation attempts, bystander CPR and survival outcomes in Australia and New Zealand: A binational population-based, Epistry study.Resuscitation plus · 2025Article
- Article
- Out-of-hospital cardiac arrest in residential aged care facilities is independently associated with lower survival in Perth, Australia.Resuscitation plus · 2023Article
- The Influence of the COVID-19 Pandemic on Emergency Medical Services to Out-of-Hospital Cardiac Arrests in a Low-Incidence Urban City: An Observational Epidemiological Analysis.International journal of environmental research and public health · 2023Observational
- Out-of-Hospital Cardiac Arrest during the COVID-19 Pandemic: A Systematic Review.Healthcare (Basel, Switzerland) · 2023Review
- Prevalence of COVID-19 Among Patients Arriving in Pre-arrest/Cardiac Arrest, at a Tertiary Hospital's ED in the Eastern Province of Saudi Arabia During the COVID-19 Pandemic.Medical archives (Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina) · 2023Observational
- Occurrence and Temporal Variability of Out-of-Hospital Cardiac Arrest during COVID-19 Pandemic in Comparison to the Pre-Pandemic Period in Poland-Observational Analysis of OSCAR-POL Registry.Journal of clinical medicine · 2022Article
- Emergency Medical Services Prehospital Response to the COVID-19 Pandemic in the US: A Brief Literature Review.Open access emergency medicine : OAEM · 2022Review
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
8 authors at 3 institutions in 1 country.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
backgroundWe examined the incidence, patient and arrest characteristics, and survival outcomes of out-of-hospital cardiac arrest (OHCA) in Western Australia (WA) in the first wave of the COVID-19 pandemic.
methodsAdult OHCA cases attended by St John WA Emergency Medical Service (EMS) between 16th March and 17th May 2020 ('COVID-19 period') were compared with those for the same period in 2017-9. We calculated crude OHCA incidence for all OHCA cases and modelled the effect of the 'COVID-19 period' on 30-day survival for OHCA cases with EMS attempted resuscitation; comparing our results with those published for Victoria (Australia), which had a higher incidence of COVID-19.
resultsIn WA there was no significant difference between the 2020 'COVID-19 period' (n = 423) and the same period in 2017-9 (n = 1,334) in the OHCA incidence in adults (117.9 vs 126.1 per 100,000 person-years, p = 0.23). In OHCA cases with EMS-resuscitation attempted, there was no change in bystander cardiopulmonary resuscitation rates. Despite an increase in EMS response time, neither the crude nor risk-adjusted odds ratio (aOR) for 30-day survival in 2020 was significantly different to 2017-9 (11.7% vs 9.6%; p = 0.45) (aOR = 1.19, 95% confidence interval 0.57-2.51, p = 0.65). This contrasts with a significant reduction in survival to hospital discharge reported in Victoria.
conclusionIn WA, with a relatively low incidence of COVID-19, OHCA incidence and survival was not significantly different during the initial wave of the COVID-19 pandemic compared to the three previous years. Our study suggests that OHCA survival may be more closely related to the incidence of COVID-19 in the community, rather than COVID-19 restrictions per se.
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