Comparison of pre-hospital emergency services time intervals in patients with heart attack in Arak, Iran

Background: after cardiac arrest, the possibility of death or irreversible complications will highlyincrease in the absence of cardiac resuscitation within 4 to 6 minutes. accordingly, measuring thepre-hospital services time intervals is important for better management of emergency medicalservices delivery. the purpose of this study then was to investigate pre-hospital time intervals forpatients with heart attack in arak city, based on locations and time variables.methods: this is a retrospective descriptive cross-sectional study, which was conducted at the arakemergency medical services (ems) during 2017-2018. data were analyzed by spss version 13.results: the total number of heart attack patients registered in arak emergency medical serviceswas 2,659 of which 51% of patients were males. six percent of patients were under 25 andabout 49 percent were between 46 and 65 years old. the average of activation, response,on-scene, transportation, recovery and total time intervals were 3:30, 7:56, 15:15, 13:34, 11:07,12:11, and 41:25, respectively. in the city area, the shortest and longest average response timeintervals were in spring and winter, respectively. in out of the city area, the shortest averageresponse time interval was in summer and the longest one in autumn. the shortest and the longestaverage response time intervals in the city area were in june and march, respectively, and in outof the city area, the shortest average response time interval was in june and the longest one inapril.conclusion: the shorter response and delivery time interval compared to the other studies mayindicate improvement in the provision of ems. special attention should be paid to the facilities andequipment of vehicles during cold seasons to be in the shortest possible time. also, training andinforming the staff more about the code of cardiac patients along with general public educationcan help improve these intervals.