Recommended guidelines for uniform reporting of data from out-of-hospital cardiac arrest: the Utstein Style. A statement for health professionals from a task force of the American Heart Association, the European Resuscitation Council, the Heart and Stroke Foundation of Canada, and the Australian Resuscitation Council.

Abstract

R esuscitation has become an important multi- disciplinary branch of medicine, demanding a spectrum of skills and attracting a plethora of specialties and organizations, each of which claims a legitimate interest in the science and prac- tice of resuscitation.This complex background has hindered the development of a uniform pattern or set of definitions for reporting results.Different systems cannot readily be compared or contrasted because data are rarely compatible.Representatives from the American Heart Association, the European Resusci- tation Council, the Heart and Stroke Foundation of Canada, and the Australian Resuscitation Council recently met to establish uniform terms and defini- tions for out-of-hospital resuscitation.The American Heart Association has supported re- suscitation activities since 1977.The European Resus- citation Council was formed in August 1989 as a multidisciplinary group of representatives from the "Recommended Guidelines for Uniform Reporting of Data From Out-of-Hospital Cardiac Arrest: The Utstein Style" was approved by the American Heart Association SAC/Steering Com- mittee on February 13, 1991 and the European Resuscitation Council in January 1991.It has also been approved by the Heart and Stroke Foundation of Canada and the Australian Resuscitation Council.This report is also being published in the August 1991 issue of Annals of Emergency Medicine and the September 1991 issue of Resuscitation, as well as German translations for Notfallmedizin and Intensivmedizin und Notfallmedizin.