Real-time feedback improves chest compression quality in out-of-hospital cardiac arrest: A prospective cohort study

BACKGROUND: Current guidelines underline the importance of high-quality chest compression during cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR), to improve outcomes. Contrary to this many studies show that chest compression is often carried out poorly in clinical practice, and long interruptions in compression are observed. This prospective cohort study aimed to analyse whether chest compression quality changes when a real-time feedback system is used to provide simultaneous audiovisual feedback on chest compression quality. For this purpose, pauses in compression, compression frequency and compression depth were compared. METHODS: The study included 292 out-of-hospital cardiac arrests in three consecutive study groups: first group, conventional resuscitation (no-sensor CPR); second group, using a feedback sensor to collect compression depth data without real-time feedback (sensor-only CPR); and third group, with real-time feedback on compression quality (sensor-feedback CPR). Pauses and frequency were analysed using compression artefacts on electrocardiography, and compression depth was measured using the feedback sensor. With this data, various parameters were determined in order to be able to compare the chest compression quality between the three consecutive groups. RESULTS: The compression fraction increased with sensor-only CPR (group 2) in comparison with no-sensor CPR (group 1) (80.1% vs. 87.49%; P < 0.001), but there were no further differences belonging compression fraction after activation of sensor-feedback CPR (group 3) (P = 1.00). Compression frequency declined over the three study groups, reaching the guideline recommendations (127.81 comp/min vs. 122.96 comp/min, P = 0.02 vs. 119.15 comp/min, P = 0.008) after activation of sensor-feedback CPR (group 3). Mean compression depth only changed minimally with sensor-feedback (52.49 mm vs. 54.66 mm; P = 0.16), but the fraction of compressions with sufficient depth (at least 5 cm) and compressions within the recommended 5-6 cm increased significantly with sensor-feedback CPR (56.90% vs. 71.03%; P = 0.003 and 28.74% vs. 43.97%; P < 0.001). CONCLUSIONS: The real-time feedback system improved chest compression quality regarding pauses in compression and compression frequency and facilitated compliance with the guideline recommendations. Compression depth did not change significantly after activation of the real-time feedback. Even the sole use of a CPR-feedback-sensor ("sensor-only CPR") improved performance regarding pauses in compression and compression frequency, a phenomenon known as the 'Hawthorne effect'. Based on this data real-time feedback systems can be expected to raise the quality level in some parts of chest compression quality. TRIAL REGISTRATION: International Clinical Trials Registry Platform of the World Health Organisation and German Register of Clinical Trials (DRKS00009903), Registered 09 February 2016 (retrospectively registered).