Community Initiatives to Promote Basic Life Support Implementation—A Scoping Review

Introduction: Early intervention of bystanders (the first links of the chain of survival) have been shown to improve survival and good neurological outcomes of patients suffering out-of-hospital cardiac arrest (OHCA). Many initiatives have been implemented to increase the engagement of communities in early basic life support (BLS) and cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR), especially of lay people with no duty to respond. A better knowledge of the most effective initiatives might help improve survival and health system organization. Aim of the scoping review: To assess the impact of specific interventions involving lay communities on bystander BLS rates and other consistent clinical outcomes, and to identify relevant knowledge gaps. Methods: This scoping review was part of the continuous evidence evaluation process of the International Liaison Committee on Resuscitation (ILCOR), and was performed following the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic reviews and Meta-Analyses extension for Scoping Reviews. We performed a literature search using the PubMed, EMBASE, and Cochrane databases until 1 February 2021. The screening process was conducted based on predefined inclusion/exclusion criteria, and for each included study, we performed data extraction focusing on the type of intervention implemented, and the impact of these interventions on the specific OHCAs outcomes. Results: Our search strategy identified 19 eligible studies, originating mainly from the USA (47.4%) and Denmark (21%). The type of intervention included in 57.9% of cases was a community CPR training program, in 36.8% bundled interventions, and in 5.3% mass-media campaigns. The most commonly reported outcome for OHCAs was bystander CPR rate (94.7%), followed by survival to hospital discharge (36.8%), proportion of people trained (31.6%), survival to hospital discharge with good neurological outcome (21%), and Return of Spontaneous Circulation (10.5%). Community training programs and bundled interventions improved bystander CPR in most of the included studies. Conclusion: Based on the results of our scoping review, we identified the potential benefit of community initiatives, such as community training in BLS, even as part of bundled intervention, in order to improve bystander CPR rates and patient outcomes.