Defibrillation time intervals and outcomes of cardiac arrest in hospital: retrospective cohort study from Get With The Guidelines-Resuscitation registry

Objective To describe temporal trends in the time interval between first and second attempts at defibrillation and the association between this time interval and outcomes in patients with persistent ventricular tachycardia or ventricular fibrillation (VT/VF) arrest in hospital. Design Retrospective cohort study Setting 172 hospitals in the United States participating in the Get With The Guidelines-Resuscitation registry, 2004-12. Participants Adults who received a second defibrillation attempt for persistent VT/VF arrest within three minutes of a first attempt. Interventions Second defibrillation attempts categorized as early (time interval of up to and including one minute between first and second defibrillation attempts) or deferred (time interval of more than one minute between first and second defibrillation attempts). Main outcome measure Survival to hospital discharge. Results Among 2733 patients with persistent VT/VF after the first defibrillation attempt, 1121 (41%) received a deferred second attempt. Deferred second defibrillation for persistent VT/VF increased from 26% in 2004 to 57% in 2012 (P<0.001 for trend). Compared with early second defibrillation, unadjusted patient outcomes were significantly worse with deferred second defibrillation (57.4% v 62.5% for return of spontaneous circulation, 38.4% v 43.6% for survival to 24 hours, and 24.7% v 30.8% for survival to hospital discharge; P<0.01 for all comparisons). After risk adjustment, deferred second defibrillation was not associated with survival to hospital discharge (propensity weighting adjusted risk ratio 0.89, 95% confidence interval 0.78 to 1.01; P=0.08; hierarchical regression adjusted 0.92, 0.83 to 1.02; P=0.1). Conclusions Since 2004, the use of deferred second defibrillation for persistent VT/VF in hospital has doubled. Deferred second defibrillation was not associated with improved survival.