Temporal trends in cardiac arrest incidence and outcome in Finnish intensive care units from 2003 to 2013

To estimate temporal trends in incidence and hospital mortality after cardiac arrest in Finnish intensive care units. Using a large nationwide intensive care unit (ICU) database we identified patients suffering from cardiac arrest following ICU admission (ICU-CA) during the study period (2003-2013). ICU-CA was defined as need for cardiopulmonary resuscitation and/or defibrillation (non-arrest cardioversions were excluded) according to the Therapeutic Intervention Scoring System-76. Patients admitted with an admission diagnosis of cardiac arrest were excluded. We determined crude incidence and risk-adjusted hospital mortality (based on a customized severity of illness model) for all ICU-CA patients, and for predefined admission diagnosis subgroups. Temporal trends for the observed period were calculated for crude incidence and risk-adjusted hospital mortality. Crude incidence for all ICU-CA patients was 29/1,000 ICU admissions, with the highest incidence 118/1,000 in the non-operative cardiovascular subgroup. Overall hospital mortality for ICU-CA patients was 55.5 % [95 % confidence interval (CI) 54-57 %]. Hospital mortality was 53.1 % (95 % CI 50.4-55.8 %) for non-operative cardiovascular ICU-CA patients, 32.9 % (95 % CI 26.9-38.9 %) for post cardiac surgery ICU-CA patients, and 56.3 % (95 % CI 51.2-61.3 %) for neurological/neurosurgical ICU-CA patients. There was a significant reduction in the overall ICU-CA incidence and in the risk-adjusted hospital mortality of ICU-CA and non-cardiac arrest cases (non-CA) over the observed study period (p < 0.001). Our data suggest that the incidence of ICU-CA has decreased in Finnish ICUs between 2003 and 2013. Similar reduction in hospital mortality over time was observed for both ICU-CA and non-CA populations.