[Who observes out-of-hospital cardiac arrests in Germany?].

INTRODUCTION: It still remains unknown why there are so poor rates of lay-resuscitation in Germany. We wanted to find out who observes the out-of-hospital cardiac arrests (OHCA) in Germany. PATIENTS AND METHODS: All patients who were admitted in our hospital between January, 1st 2008 and December, 31st 2013 following non-traumatic OHCA were identified and the patients' data were stored on a central data base.
RESULTS: Data on 204 patients (124 male [60,8 %], 80 female [39,2 %], aged 69,1 ± 14,2 years [range 18-97 years]) were analysed. Altogether, 137 OHCA were witnessed (67,2 %): 83 cases (40,7 %) by laypersons and 54 further cases (26,5 %) by medical professionals. Among laypersons, most OHCA were witnessed by the partner (17,2 %) and further relatives (11,8 %) but resuscitation rates among partner (3,9 %) and relatives (5,9 %) were poor. Altogether, immediate resuscitation attempts were started in 93 patients, hereunder in 35 cases (17,2 %) by layperson and 58 cases (28,4 %) by medical professionals.
CONCLUSION: Rates of lay-resuscitation remain poor despite high rates of witnessed events: unfortunately, especially partner and relatives act too rarely. However, the motivation to approve their knowledge in first-aid and resuscitation might rise among lays if they are informed that it is more likely to observe a partner's or relative´s OHCA than a stranger's. © Georg Thieme Verlag KG Stuttgart · New York.