Clinical Research Directory

The Effect of SPecialty cAre on Recovery From Cardiac Arrest Trial (the SPARC Trial)

This randomized clinical trial will determine if adult participants who are in the emergency department after being resuscitated from a cardiac arrest outside of the hospital benefit from care delivered at specialized centers. The main question that it will answer is whether transferring participants to a hospital with a specialized cardiac arrest service improves recovery of function after 90 days. Participants will receive all usual medical care, but some participants will be offered transfer to a regional cardiac arrest center and others will be offered care at the closest appropriate hospital. Investigators will interview participants after 90 days to assess their recovery.

Naloxone for Opioid Associated Out of Hospital Cardiac Arrest

The investigator's long-term goal is to conduct Naloxone for Opioid Associated out of Hospital Cardiac Arrest (NOPACA), a randomized, double blind, controlled trial to determine the efficacy of naloxone vs. placebo in Opioid Associated out of Hospital Cardiac Arrest. The investigative team plan to randomize patients in OHCA to early naloxone administration vs. placebo after initial resuscitation and measure ROSC and survival. Challenges to designing NOPACA include uncertainty regarding: 1) the available pool of participants and number of EMS agencies needed to meet enrollment targets; 2) acceptability among patients, EMS and Emergency Medicine provider stakeholders, and 3) estimates of the study outcomes needed for sample size estimates. Toward obtaining the necessary information to design NOPACA, the investigators propose a pilot RCT of participants at high risk for OA-OHCA to verify a reasonable recruitment rate; treatment fidelity and acceptability; and adequate retention and measurement of outcomes at follow up. The investigators propose incorporating hypothesis testing of the feasibility outcomes to determine progression to a definitive trial.

An Educational Program to Improve Cardiac Arrest Diagnostic Accuracy of Ambulance Telecommunicators

Cardiac arrest is the number one cause of death in Canada. It is often the first symptom of cardiac disease for the victims. Eighty-five percent of victims collapse in their own home. Fifty percent collapse in the presence of a family member. Bystander cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) can improve the chance to survive a cardiac arrest by three to four times, but needs to be started quickly. In most communities, less than 30% of victims receive CPR before the ambulance arrives. Currently, only 8% of cardiac arrest victims can leave the hospital alive. Many things have been tried to improve the number of times people do CPR. So far, the only thing that really increased the number of times that someone did CPR is when 9-1-1 attendants started to give CPR instructions to callers over the phone. The only problem is that about 25% of cardiac arrest victims gasp for air in the first few minutes. This can fool the 9-1-1 callers and attendants into thinking that the victim is still alive. The investigators have looked at all the studies on how to help 9-1-1 attendants to recognize abnormal breathing over the phone. The investigators have also learned what should be taught after finishing a large survey with 9-1-1 attendants from across Canada. This survey was done with the help of psychologists and other education experts. It measured the impact of attitudes, social pressures, and 9-1-1 attendants' perceived control over their ability to recognize abnormal breathing and cardiac arrest. Then the investigators developed a teaching tool which helped Ottawa 9-1-1 attendants recognize abnormal breathing. When they could do that, they could also recognize more cardiac arrest. The main goal of this project is to use the tool developed in Ottawa in more centres to help 9-1-1 attendants save the lives of even more cardiac arrest victims across Canada.