Out-of-hospital cardiac arrest exhibits a circadian rhythm with a morning peak and lowest incidence during the night, with slight variations in peak times between genders.
Object: Assessment of the cardiac arrest incidence during 24 hours and its gender and age distribution. Methdology: The data base of 'Eureca Serbia' registry was used for this analysis in the period from 1 October, 2014 to 1 August, 2017. Unique database of the 'Eureca Serbia' registry holds the information of all patients who suffered out-of-hospital cardiac arrest and were subjected to cardiopulmonary resuscitation by emergency medical team. Results: During the observed period we found 3153 patients with OHCA in Eureca Serbia registry. CPR was provided in 1385 cases. There were 907 male patients and 478 female patients. OHCA happened to men mostly at age 60-69, while in women population it happened mostly at age 70-79. Circadian rhythm shows peak of OHCA from 8:00 to 10:00h. In the hours between 12:00 and 16:00h OHCA mostly happened to men, while women suffered mostly between 10:00 and 12:00h, and between 18:00 and 20:00h. Conclusion: OHCA occurs equally in both genders during the whole day. According to our analysis percentage of cardiac arrest is lower during the night hours. Further analysis of the available documentation on patients who were claimed dead at night time, or were discovered late because there were no witnesses, could perhaps explain whether the incidence of OHCA is actually equal during the day and night hours.
Beljić et al. (Mon,) studied this question.