Abstract
Background: Cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) is a technique applied on patients whose heart and breathing has stopped, in order to maintain their circulation and breathing. The current study aimed to assess the relationship between CPR duration time, survival, and outcomes among adult patients.
Methods: A retrospective study was conducted among adult patients at Prince Sultan Military Medical City (PSMMC). Data were collected from the medical records at PSMMC and analyzed using IBM SPSS version 20.0. Chi-squared test was used to assess the categorical variables. A p-value less than 5% was considered significant.
Results: Out of 323 adult patients, 67.9% of the patients consumed time less than 20 minutes for CPR in the hospital; the most presented rhythm was asystole (47.4%) and majority of the patients did not need electric shock (79%). The median latency time before starting CRP was 12 minutes. Approximately half of the cases ended in death (50.6%), while the return of spontaneous circulation (ROSC) took place for 49.4% of the cases. A
large number of patients died (58.1%) before discharge, while 41.9% survived; among them, few (11.5%) were successfully discharged from the hospital, while most of them died (88.5%).
Conclusions: In this study, most patients consumed time less than 20 minutes for CPR and few cases achieved an ROSC. Few patients were successfully discharged from the hospital, while most of them died. These results suggest that prolonged resuscitation is not futile and longer duration for CPR is related to low ROSC achievement, which in turn lead to a poor survival rate and outcome.

Key words: Asystole, cardiopulmonary resuscitation, return of spontaneous circulation (ROSC), pulseless electrical activity (PEA)