Geographical setting is seldomly taken into account when investigating out-of-hospital cardiac arrest (OHCA). It is a common notion that living in rural areas means a lower chance of fast and effective help when suffering a time-critical event. This retrospective cohort study investigates this hypothesis and compares across healthcare-divided administrative regions. We included only witnessed OHCAs to minimize the risk that outcome was predetermined by time to caller arrival and/or recognition. Arrests were divided into public and residential. Residential arrests were categorized according to population density of the area in which they occurred. We investigated incidence, EMS response time and 30-day survival according to area type and subsidiarily by healthcare-divided administrative region.
