Background: Ambulance services throughout the world respond to and deal with cardiac arrests on a daily basis. Most ambulance services rely on manual cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) being performed by paramedics or suitable bystanders with the addition of airway adjuncts, defibrillation and pharmacological interventions. Recent advances in healthcare technologies have introduced mechanical devices and biofeedback to individuals performing CPR with the aim to improve the quality of CPR.
Purpose/aims: The aims of the proposed study are two-fold: (1) to evaluate the influence of providing biofeedback using the Q-CPR system on the quality of compression in the hands of student paramedics; and (2) to evaluate the effects of maintaining effective CPR on indices of measured fatigue.
Methods: 40 student paramedics completed CPR on an instrumented manikin with and without audio-visual biofeedback (Q-CPR within the Phillips MRx defibrillator) in a balanced cross-over fashion. Manikin feedback system (SimMan 3G; Laerdal, Sweden) will be used to quantify the quality of CPR in terms of the percentage of applied compressions that meet the current ARC guidelines in terms of rate, depth, and recoil time.
Results/findings: In this study it was found that the rate, recoil time and depth was different between the two genders during normal manual CPR without any prompting. However, it was found that once the Q-CPR prompt was introduced, the depth and fatigue levels increasedsignificantly. This highlights that there is a correlation between correct depth and increased fatigue.
Conclusion: Over a 7-year period, the Ambulance Services have recorded a decline from 26.2% of cardiac arrests surviving to discharge from hospital to 25.5%. This decline may be attributed to techniques relating to performer fatigue. However, to our knowledge no study has evaluated the influence ofperforming effective CPR, in-line with the current ARC guidelines, on indices of physiological fatigue in Australian Paramedics trained to an advanced level. This pilot study provides Impact and translation to practice through a broader scale research project into pre-hospital CPR performance, especially reviewing physiological fatigue parameters