1. RESEARCH POSTER PRESENTATION DESIGN © 2015
www.PosterPresentations.com
Sudden cardiac arrests remain one of the
main causes of mortality internationally,
while most of them occur in an out-of-
hospital setting. Τheir management requires
delivery of high quality cardiopulmonary
resuscitation (CPR), both outside and inside
the hospital, according to well described,
scientifically proven algorithms1.
In contrary to many other European
countries, there is no sufficient data from
Greece concerning neither the overall
survival of cardiac arrest victims nor their
neurological outcome or the quality of CPR
delivered to them by healthcare personnel.
The accumulation of this data becomes even
more crucial during our country’s present
financial circumstances since, according to
the literature, austerity measures can affect
all-cause mortality in a negative way2,3.
INTRODUCTION
The aim of this study is to assess the impact
of the austerity measures, implemented in
the Hellenic Healthcare System, during the
ongoing national financial crisis.
A retrospective study was conducted on all
the patients who experienced an out-of-
hospital cardiac arrest and were transferred
to the emergency department of our hospital
(Pammakaristos Athens Hospital) during an
eight-year period (2007-2014). The cardiac
arrests were then divided into two
quadrenniums (2007-2010 and 2011-2014)
with the first and second quadrennium
representing the pre-crisis and the financial
crisis period respectively.
Data concerning victims’ ROSC and 24-
hour survival after CPR were then compared
between the two periods using Z-test (two-
tailed hypothesis) with p values below 0.05
being considered statistically significant.
MATERIALS AND METHODS RESULTS
CONCLUSION
The financial regulations that have been
implemented in our institution due to the
recent economic crisis4 led to no significant
change in the immediate and 24-hour
survival of out-of-hospital cardiac arrest
victims treated in our ER department.
On the other hand, there was a significant
increase in the overall CPR attempts after
the emergence of the crisis. The results of
the study may suggest current healthcare
personnel’s overexertion in order to adjust
to these challenging times.
The confirmation and interpretation of the
present study’s results require the
conduction of similar studies by other
Greek secondary and tertiary healthcare
institutions, in order to shed more light on
cardiac arrest survivorship in our country.
References
1. Soar, J., Nolan, J.P., Böttiger, B.W., Perkins, G.D., Lott, C., Carli, P., Pellis, T., Sandroni, C., Skrifvars, M.B., Smith, G.B., Sunde, K., Deakin, C.D., Koster, R.W., Monsieurs, K.G., Nikolaou, N.I., 2015. European Resuscitation Council Guidelines
for Resuscitation 2015: Section 3. Adult advanced life support. Resuscitation, European Resuscitation Council Guidelines for Resuscitation 2015European Resuscitation Council Congress - Prague 2015 95, 100–147.
doi:10.1016/j.resuscitation.2015.07.016
2. Falagas, M.E., Vouloumanou, E.K., Mavros, M.N., Karageorgopoulos, D.E., 2009. Economic crises and mortality: a review of the literature. Int. J. Clin. Pract. 63, 1128–1135. doi:10.1111/j.1742-1241.2009.02124.x
3. Fountoulakis, K.N., Grammatikopoulos, I.A., Koupidis, S.A., Siamouli, M., Theodorakis, P.N., 2012. Health and the financial crisis in Greece. The Lancet 379, 1001–1002.doi:10.1016/S0140-6736(12)60422-X
4. Kondilis, E., Giannakopoulos, S., Gavana, M., Ierodiakonou, I., Waitzkin, H., Benos, A., 2013. Economic Crisis, Restrictive Policies, and the Population’s Health and Health Care: The Greek Case. Am. J. Public Health 103, 973–979.
doi:10.2105/AJPH.2012.301126
201 cardiac arrests were noted in the first
group versus 230 in the second.
There was no significant change in ROSC
(8.53% vs 7.41%, p=0.80) and 24-hour
survival (5.43% vs 3.70%, p=0.62) of the
victims on whom CPR was performed in
the ER between the 2 periods. On the other
hand there was a statistically significant
increase in the percentage of victims on
whom CPR was performed (56.1% vs
26.9%, p<0.05) during the second period.
The dramatic decline of the mean age of
cardiac arrest victims in 2010, the year the
memorantum was signed is also a notable
fact.
Zisimangelos Solomos1, Maria Tatsi2, Emmanouil Spathis3, Victoria Psomiadou2, Angeliki Tsifi4, Konstantinos Miltiadou5, Dimitrios Theodoridis6, Konstantinos Kostoulas7
1,2 “Pammakaristos” Athens General Hospital- 1Internal Medicine and 2General Surgery Departments (zisimosmed@gmail.com), 3University of Crete- Department of Economic Science, 4“Laikon” General Hospital- 1st
Department of Internal Medicine, Athens, 5‘’Metaxa’’ Special Cancer Hospital-Department of Medical Oncology, 6“Ilion” Primary National Health Network- Biopathology Department, 7“G.Gennimatas” Athens
General Hospital- 2nd Department of General Surgery,
THE IMPACT OF THE ECONOMIC RECESSION ON THE OUTCOME OF CPR PERFORMED ON OUT-OF-HOSPITAL CARDIAC
ARRESTS: DATA FROM THE EMERGENCY DEPARTMENT OF A GREEK GENERAL HOSPITAL