16,045 cases surveyed in the first half of 2025
On June 18, 2026, the Korea Disease Control and Prevention Agency (KDCA) published its first-half 2025 acute cardiac arrest statistics. The survey covers patients who experienced acute cardiac arrest between January and June 2025 and were transported to a medical facility by a 119 ambulance crew.
First-half figures at a glance
First half of 2024 → first half of 2025
- Survival rate9.2% → 9.4%+0.2 pp
- Bystander CPR rate30.2% → 32.9%+2.7 pp
- Neurological recovery6.4% → 6.2%−0.2 pp
Of the 16,229 acute cardiac arrest cases recorded during this period, 16,045 were included in the completed survey, for a completion rate of 98.9%. KDCA compiles the occurrence, treatment, and survival outcomes of acute cardiac arrest through hospital medical records.
Survival rate 9.4%; neurological recovery 6.2%
There were 1,501 patients discharged alive, resulting in a survival rate of 9.4%. This was 0.2 percentage points higher than the 9.2% recorded in the first half of 2024.
A total of 1,001 patients were discharged with neurological function restored to a level generally compatible with independent daily living. The neurological recovery rate was 6.2%, 0.2 percentage points lower than the 6.4% recorded in the first half of 2024. In KDCA statistics, neurological recovery generally refers to a Cerebral Performance Category (CPC) score of 1 or 2.
Bystander CPR rate reaches 32.9%
Bystanders performed CPR in 4,500 cases, giving a bystander CPR rate of 32.9%. This was 2.7 percentage points higher than the 30.2% recorded in the first half of 2024. In this survey, “bystander” excludes on-duty ambulance crew members and healthcare professionals.
When bystander CPR was performed, the survival rate was 15.3% and the neurological recovery rate was 11.5%. When it was not performed, the rates were 5.6% and 3.3%, respectively.
The two groups differed by 2.7 times in survival and 3.5 times in neurological recovery.1
Why has the bystander CPR rate increased?
This survey did not separately analyse why the rate increased. The 2.7 percentage-point rise from the first half of 2024 therefore cannot be attributed to a single cause.
The 2025 Korean CPR Guidelines do note that bystander CPR rates have gradually increased since dispatcher-assisted CPR was introduced. They also identify practical training, repeated training, recent training, and community education as factors that can help witnesses attempt CPR. These are long-term background factors in Korea; they are not an analysis directly explaining the change between these two half-year periods.
47.0% of cases occurred at home
In the first half of 2025, 77.6% of acute cardiac arrests were caused by disease, including cardiac causes such as myocardial infarction and arrhythmia and conditions such as stroke. Non-disease causes, including falls, transport incidents, and hanging, accounted for 22.0%.
Non-public places, including homes and care facilities, accounted for 65.6% of cases; public places, including commercial facilities and roads, accounted for 18.6%. Homes were the single most common location, accounting for 47.0% of all cases.
How to read these statistics
In this survey, the survival rate is the proportion of acute cardiac arrest patients whose emergency-department or inpatient outcome was recorded as discharge, self-discharge, or transfer. The bystander CPR rate is the proportion of patients who received CPR before hospital arrival from someone other than an on-duty ambulance crew member or healthcare professional.
These figures cover the first half of 2025. KDCA is scheduled to publish the full-year 2025 acute cardiac arrest survey results in December 2026.
1 These figures directly compare outcomes for patients who received CPR with those for patients who did not. The groups were not matched for patient condition or place of arrest, so the entire difference cannot be attributed to CPR alone.