National survey of do not attempt resuscitation decisions on out-of-hospital cardiac arrest in China

BACKGROUND: To investigate and understand the determinants of decisions not to attempt resuscitation following out-of-hospital cardiac arrest, to contribute to establishing rules that are appropriate to China. METHODS: We recruited participants through directors of emergency medical services across China. A 28-question web survey was available between February 5 and March 6, 2021 that targeted demographic information and views on emergency work and cardiopulmonary resuscitation. Each question was assigned a value between 1 and 7 based on the level of importance from low to high. T-tests, one-way analysis of variance, and Kruskal–Wallis H-tests were used to compare continuous variables. Binary logistic regression analysis was used to identify factors influencing when people considered it suitable to initiate cardiopulmonary resuscitation. RESULTS: The study involved 4289 participants from 31 provinces, autonomous regions and municipalities in mainland China, of whom 52.8% were male. The top three reasons for not attempting cardiopulmonary resuscitation were decomposition/hypostasis/rigor mortis (6.39 ± 1.44 points), massive injury (4.57 ± 2.08 points) and family members’ preference (4.35 ± 1.98 points). In total, 2761 (64.4%) thought emergency services should not attempt cardiopulmonary resuscitation when cardiac arrest had happened more than 30 min before, and there had been no bystander cardiopulmonary resuscitation. Gender (OR 1.233, p = 0.002), religion (OR 1.147, p = 0.046), level (OR 0.903, p = 0.028) or classification of city (OR 0.920, p = 0.049), years of work experience (OR 0.884, p = 0.004), and major (OR 1.032, p = 0.044) all influenced how long after cardiac arrest was considered suitable for initiating cardiopulmonary resuscitation. CONCLUSIONS: Chinese emergency physicians have different perceptions of when not to attempt resuscitation to those practicing elsewhere. The existing guidelines for resuscitation are not suitable for China, and China-specific guidelines need to be established. SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1186/s12873-022-00581-0.