Five studies were included in the review. The total number of patients included in the studies was unclear. Three studies were before-after cardiopulmonary resuscitation training programme studies and two were retrospective cohort studies. All five studies were deemed to have been fair quality.
System-wide implementation of dispatch cardiopulmonary resuscitation programmes showed inconsistent effects on survival (three studies); one study showed improvements with dispatcher assisted instructions, one showed a non-significant improvement, and the third reported a decrease in overall survival.
Two studies compared bystander cardiopulmonary resuscitation with versus without dispatcher assistance. One indirect comparison study showed improvements with and without dispatcher assistance compared with no bystander cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR), with the dispatcher assisted resuscitation showing a trend towards greater improvements when indirectly compared with no dispatcher assistance. The second study showed significantly better survival when bystanders received dispatcher assistance.
Timings on the recognition of cardiac arrest and start of dispatcher-assisted cardiopulmonary resuscitation, rate of bystander cardiopulmonary resuscitation, and rates of dispatcher instructions were reported in the review.