• Scott R Stangenes, Ian S Painter, Thomas D Rea, and Hendrika Meischke.
• Department of Health Services, University of Washington, Seattle, WA, United States.
• Resuscitation. 2020 Apr 1; 149: 82-86.

BackgroundThe objective of this study was to test if caller descriptions of chief complaint delays emergency medical dispatchers' (EMDs) recognition of the need for telephone-assisted CPR (T-CPR).MethodsWe conducted an analysis of N = 433 cardiac arrest calls from six large call centers in the United States. Calls were abstracted for initial chief complaint description: caller reports (1) correct medical condition (CMC); (2) incorrect medical condition (IMC), or (3) signs/symptoms only (SS), as well the time interval between call pickup and recognition of the need for T-CPR. In addition, we abstracted if EMDs asked questions related to the caller's chief complaint (rather than, or before), asking about patients' consciousness and breathing status.ResultsThe majority of cardiac arrest calls (60%) were reported as SS. Median time to recognition of the need for T-CPR was 64 s for SS chief complaints, 47 s for CMC chief complaints, and 100 s for IMC chief complaints. EMDs pursued chief complaint descriptions for 9% of the calls with SS chief complaints, 41% of the calls with IMC chief complaints, and 19% of the calls with CMC chief complaints. Median time to recognition of the need for CPR for calls in which the chief complaint description was pursued was 166 s compared to 62 s for calls in which the chief complaint description was not pursued.ConclusionCaller chief complaint description affects the time to recognition of the need for T-CPR.Clinical Trial Registrationhttp://www.clinicaltrials.gov Trial # NCT01972087.Published by Elsevier B.V.

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