Introduction:

currently there is not a registry of sudden death in Uruguay. Extrapolating data from other countries it is estimated that between 2.000 and 3.000 people die suddenly every year, five or six times more than in traffic accidents.

Objective:

to describe the presentation of patients with out-of-hospital cardiac arrest (OHCA) assisted by a Mobile Medical Emergency (MME) in some urban and suburban centers in Maldonado; and to analize variables associated with greater survival at hospital admission (SHA).

Material and method:

a retrospective, descriptive-analytical study of all OHCA in patients older than 14 years assisted in the period between January 2005 and August 2017, in Maldonado department, by a MME was performed. For analysis, the chi-square test was performed for the categorical variables and the t-test for the continuous variables.

Results:

347 patients were recruited in the study period. 69,7% were men, with a mean age of 66 years old (SD±12,5 years) and 30,3% were women, mean age 71,6 years old (SD±13,5 years), p=0,002. The median time of call reception-arrival was 7 minutes. The OHCA presented in 82,4% of cases at home. Ten patients were assisted with automatic external defibrillator (AED). The rhythms at arrival were: asystole 56,2%, ventricular fibrillation 29,4%, pulseless electrical activity 13,5% and ventricular tachycardia without pulse 0,9%. 44,6% received defibrillation with an average of 3,5 discharges per patient. SHA was 21,9%. In the univariated analysis, the variables that were associated with higher SHA were: public settings as the site of the event (p <0,001), shockable rhythm at arrival (p <0,001), and younger age (p <0,001).

Conclusions:

the most frequent rhythm at the arrival of the health team was asystole followed by ventricular fibrillation. Younger age, public settings as the place of the event and the presence of shockable rhythms at the arrival of the MME, were associated with higher SHA.

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