A survey of ventilation strategies during cardiopulmonary resuscitation

Many controversies still exist regarding ventilator parameters during cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR). This study aimed to investigate the CPR ventilation strategies currently being used among physicians in Chinese tertiary hospitals.

A survey was conducted among the cardiac arrest team physicians of 500 tertiary hospitals in China in August, 2018. Surveyed data included physician and hospital information, and preferred ventilation strategy during CPR.

A total of 438 (88%) hospitals completed the survey, including hospitals from all 31 mainland Chinese provinces. About 41.1% of respondents chose delayed or no ventilation during CPR, with delayed ventilations all starting within 12 minutes. Of all the respondents who provided ventilation, 83.0% chose to strictly follow the 30:2 strategy, while 17.0% chose ventilations concurrently with uninterrupted compressions. Only 38.3% respondents chose to intubate after initiating CPR, while 61.7% chose to intubate immediately when resuscitation began. During bag-valve-mask ventilation, only 51.4% of respondents delivered a frequency of 10 breaths per minute. In terms of ventilator settings, the majority of respondents chose volume control (VC) mode (75.2%), tidal volume of 6-7 mL/kg (72.1%), PEEP of 0-5 cmH₂O (69.9%), and an FiO₂ of 100% (66.9%). However, 62.0% of respondents had mistriggers after setting the ventilator, and 51.8% had high pressure alarms.

There is a great amount of variability in CPR ventilation strategies among cardiac arrest team physicians in Chinese tertiary hospitals. Guidelines are needed with specific recommendations on ventilation during CPR.