A preliminary study of the reliability of immediate vs delayed interviews of cardiac arrest witnesses

1999 
Introduction. Methods to characterize the interval between a collapse from cardiac arrest until a 911 call is made have not yet been developed. Objective. To determine the concordance of cardiac arrest data obtained by two methods: an immediate nurse interview of out-of-hospital cardiac arrest (OHCA) witnesses, and a follow-up phone interview performed two weeks later. Methods. This was a prospective study of OHCA witnesses dating from January 1997 to May 1998. Witnesses were briefly interviewed at the time of emergency department presentation, and two weeks later a more lengthy structured phone interview was performed. The authors identified key data elements: 1) was the arrest witnessed? (Wit); 2) was CPR administered prior to EMS arrival? (BCPR); 3) was the first call placed to 911? (c911); and 4) was the estimated collapse to call interval <4 minutes? (ECCI). The analysis utilized Cohen's kappa statistic and Spearman's correlation coefficient. Results. A convenience sample of 42 matched pairs of OHCA ...
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