Objective The quality of cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) has been shown to affect the survival of out-of-hospital cardiac arrest cases (OHCA). There are various individual factors that can affect the quality of chest compression. We aimed to determine if age, gender and physical attributes (height, weight and BMI) affected the quality of chest compressions administered by laypersons during training.

Design and methods The CPRcard^™ is a novel device that captures and provides real-time visual feedback on chest compression quality through a 2 metre display. We analysed data from our layperson CPR and AED training sessions from October 2015 to November 2015. Measurement parameters were adequate depth, adequate rate and flow fraction. Adequate depth was the percentage of total chest compressions with depth 5 cm. Adequate rate was the percentage of compression with rate between 100–120 chest compressions per minute. Flow fraction is the percentage of time chest compressions were performed without more than a 3 s pause. An adequate flow fraction target was >80%.

Results 77 participant’s data were analysed. 35% were male and 65% were female, with majority (34%) being 35–44 years old. The mean height was 1.63 m±0.10 m, mean weight 61.4 kg ±14.0 kg and mean BMI 23±4 kg/m². Median adequate rate decreased significantly with age (p value=0.02). Median adequate depth and flow time showed no association with age (p=0.56, p=0.46 respectively). Males managed a significantly better median adequate depth (82.0% vs 56.0%, p value=0.01). There was no significant difference in chest compression quality with height, weight and BMI.

Conclusions Overall, at least 1 parameter of chest compression quality decreased with age, and was better in males than females. A possible application of these results is to have differences in training methods for different ages and sexes, targeting parameters that they are weaker at.