“An AED is only beneficial if a bystander is willing to use it when someone is in cardiac arrest,” said lead study author Patrick Schober, M.D., Ph.D., of V.U. University Medical Center in Amsterdam, The Netherlands. “AEDs are increasingly available in public places, such as the train station where we conducted our survey. However, in our study, only 28 percent of participants correctly identified the AED, knew its purpose and expressed a willingness to use it.”
Just over one-third (34 percent) of participants stated that anyone is allowed to use an AED, with nearly half (49 percent) believing only trained personnel may use it. The most frequently mentioned reason given for not using an AED was not knowing how it works (69 percent), followed by fear of harming the victim (14 percent). Only 6 percent of study participants spontaneously mentioned AEDs in response to a question about what should be done as quickly as possible for someone suspected of being in cardiac arrest.
Sudden cardiac arrest is a leading cause of mortality in North America and Europe. Odds of survival decline by 7 to 10 percent per minute of delay in defibrillation. AED application by bystanders saves only 1.4 lives per 1 million people in North America.
“AEDs are actually very easy to use, but it is obvious that the public has not gotten that message,” said Dr. Schober. “Only a minority of individuals demonstrated both knowledge and willingness to operate an AED. Wide-scale public information campaigns are an important next step to exploit the lifesavings potential of public AEDs.”;
The study, Public Access Defibrillation: Time to Access the Public, was published online Jan. 31 in the Annals of Emergency Medicine, a peer-reviewed scientific journal for the American College of Emergency Physicians, a national medical society.