Impact of Racial and Gender Variations in Patients With Out-of-hospital Cardiac Arrest: A Nation-Wide Study

The overall incidence of Out-of-hospital Cardiac Arrest (OHCA) is decreasing worldwide due to emergency responses, but there are gender and racial differences in the incidence of OHCA, which remain under investigation. Our aim was to identify the incidence, gender, and racial disparities in patients admitted with OHCA. The National Inpatient Sample Database is one of the largest all-payer inpatient database. It was queried to identify patients 18 years or older who were hospitalized with the principal diagnosis of OHCA. There was a total of 85,988 patients who were discharged with a diagnosis classified as OHCA using the ICD-9 code for a period of 2 years. The mean age of the patients who had presented to the hospital with OHCA was 64.3 (±18.5 years). Overall, a greater number of males suffered from OHCA were compared with female population of (48,635 vs 37,366; P < 0.0001). The incidence of OHCA was higher among Caucasians as compared with African Americans (54,812, 63.8% vs 13,787, 16%; P < 0.0001). In-hospital deaths after OHCA were 43,024 (50%). But African Americans had higher mortality than Caucasians after hospitalization for OHCA (adjusted odds ratio, 1.23; 95% confidence interval, 1.18-1.26; P < 0.01). We observed significant differences in gender and racial factors in the patients who were admitted to the hospital with a diagnosis of OHCA based on an analysis of the national inpatient database.