Impact of COVID-19 on barriers to dispatcher-assisted cardiopulmonary resuscitation in adult out-of-hospital cardiac arrests in Singapore.

Objective: Fewer out-of-hospital cardiac arrest (OHCA) patients received bystander cardiopulmonary resuscitation during the COVID-19 pandemic in Singapore. We investigated the impact of COVID-19 on barriers to dispatcher-assisted cardiopulmonary resuscitation (DA-CPR).

Methods: We reviewed audio recordings of all calls to our national ambulance service call centre during the pandemic (January-June 2020) and pre-pandemic (January-June 2019) periods.