Table 2.

Characteristics of patients who received therapeutic hypothermia in the emergency medical centers, either in the emergency departments or after hospitalization. Those who were transported directly and those who were transferred from other hospitals were compared. Values are reported in counts and percentages in parentheses.

	Direct group	Transferred group	p value
	n = 1,164	n = 634
Gender (male) (n, %)	807 (69.3)	408 (64.4)	0.036
Age (years)			0.025
15∼24	25 (2.1)	15 (2.4)
25∼44	148 (12.7)	87 (13.7)
45∼64	499 (42.9)	233 (36.8)
65∼74	364 (31.3)	200 (31.5)
75 or above	128 (11.0)	99 (15.6)
Mode of transport			<0.001
NFA ambulance	1,092 (93.8)	73 (11.5)
Other ambulances	19 (1.6)	509 (80.3)
Air transportation	4 (0.3)	30 (4.7)
Other transportation	49 (4.2)	22 (3.5)
AVPU scale			<0.001
Verbal	116 (10.0)	52 (8.2)
Pain	289 (24.8)	260 (41.0)
Unresponsive	759 (65.2)	322 (50.8)
Systolic blood pressure (mmHg)	135.3 ± 45.9	125.2 ± 40.4	<0.001
Heart rate (beats per minute)	95.0 ± 29.8	97.6 ± 26.8	0.109
Respiratory rate (breaths per minute)	20.0 ± 5.7	20.2 ± 5.8	0.617
Body temperature (°C)	36.1 ± 1.2	36.2 ± 1.4	0.613
MEWS	5.6 ± 2.3	5.6 ± 2.2	0.781
ED disposition			0.531
Death	25 (2.1)	13 (2.1)
Discharge	2 (0.2)	0 (0.0)
Admission to ICU	1106 (95.0)	597 (94.2)
Transfer to other hospital	7 (0.6)	7 (1.1)
Admission to ward	24 (2.1)	17 (2.7)
Survival in ED	1,139 (97.9)	621 (97.9)	1.000
Treatment outcome after hospitalization			0.103
Death	448 (39.8)	247 (40.4)
Discharge	354 (31.5)	161 (26.3)
Transfer to another hospital	310 (27.6)	199 (32.5)
Hopeless discharge	1 (0.1)	0 (0.0)
Others	12 (1.1)	5 (0.8)
Overall survival rate	690 (59.3)	374 (59.0)	0.945

EMC: emergency medical center; NFA: national fire agency; ED: emergency department; MEWS: modified emergency warning score; ICU: intensive care unit.