The survival rate of cardiac arrest patients in Korea was 7.8 percent in 2022, up 0.5 percentage points from 7.3 percent in 2021.

The Korea Disease Control and Prevention Agency (KDCA) and the National Fire Agency (NFA) held the “12th Sudden Cardiac Arrest Survey Symposium” on Wednesday. They announced the survey results on more than 30,000 sudden cardiac arrest patients transported by paramedics in 2022.

Acute cardiac arrests were caused by diseases, such as myocardial infarction, arrhythmia, and stroke, which accounted for 78.3 percent of the total, and non-disease causes, including falls and traffic accidents, accounted for 20.9 percent.

Of the patients transported by 119 paramedics, 34,848 visited a hospital and completed a medical record survey, and 2,701 of them survived, resulting in a survival rate of 7.8 percent, an improvement of 0.5 percentage points from 7.3 percent in 2021.

Besides, 1,774 recovered brain function so that they could perform activities of daily living, accounting for 5.1 percent of the total, up 0.7 percentage points from 4.4% in 2021.

In 29.3 percent of cases, CPR was performed by ordinary people, up 0.5 percentage points from 28.8 percent in 2021, a trend that has increased yearly since 2012.

In particular, the survival rates were 12.2 percent for those who received CPR from ordinary people and 5.9 percent for those who did not, indicating that the survival rate was 2.1 times higher when CPR was performed.

"It is very important to perform CPR immediately after witnessing a patient in cardiac arrest, as the survival rate is about twice as high if CPR is performed by a layperson than if it is not," KDCA Commissioner Jee Young-mee said.

NFA Commissioner Nam Hwa-young said, "We ask the public to follow the instructions of the 119 situation room so that cardiac arrest patients can receive CPR quickly."