• J Nas, J Thannhauser, P Vart, Rjm van Geuns, Hec Muijsers, Jhq Mol, Gwa Aarts, Lsf Konijnenberg, Dhf Gommans, Sgam Ahoud-Schoenmakers, J L Vos, N van Royen, J L Bonnes, and M A Brouwer.
• Department of Cardiology, Radboud University Medical Center, Nijmegen, the Netherlands. Electronic address: joris.nas@radboudumc.nl.
• Resuscitation. 2022 Dec 1; 181: 121912-19.

BackgroundCardiac arrests often occur in public places, but despite the undisputed impact of bystander CPR, it is debated whether one should act as a rescuer after alcohol consumption due to the perceived adverse effects. We provide the first objective data on the impact of alcohol levels on CPR-skills.MethodsPre-specified analysis of a randomised study at the Lowlands music festival (August 2019, the Netherlands) on virtual reality vs face-to-face CPR-training. Participants with an alcohol level ≥ 0.5‰ (WHO-endorsed cut-off for traffic participation) were eligible provided they successfully completed a tandem gait test. We studied alcohol levels (AL, ‰) in relation to CPR-quality (compression depth and rate) and CPR-scenario performance.ResultsMedian age of the 352 participants was 26 (22-31) years, 56% were female, with n = 214 in Group 1 (AL = 0‰), n = 85 in Group 2 (AL = 0-0.5‰) and n = 53 in Group 3 (AL ≥ 0.5‰). There were no significant differences in CPR-quality (depth: 57 [49-59] vs 57 [51-60] vs 55 mm [47-59], p = 0.16; rate: 115 [104-121] vs 114 [106-122] vs 111 min-1 [95-120], p = 0.19). There were no significant correlations between alcohol level and compression depth (Spearman's rho -0.113, p = 0.19) or rate (Spearman's rho -0.073, p = 0.39). CPR-scenario performance scores (maximum 13) were not different between groups (12 (9-13) vs 12 (9-13) vs 11 (9-13), p = 0.80).ConclusionIn this study on festival attendees, we found no association between alcohol levels and CPR-quality or scenario performance shortly after training.Trial RegistrationLowlands Saves Lives is registered on https://www.Clinicaltrialsgov (NCT04013633).Copyright © 2022 The Author(s). Published by Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

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