A retrospective Korean registry analysis included 23,918 adults with out-of-hospital cardiac arrest of presumed medical etiology, including 383 with bystander AED application. Compared with no prehospital defibrillation, bystander AED application was associated with higher survival to discharge (adjusted odds ratio 1.60, 95% CI 1.19–2.14) and good neurological outcome (2.31, 1.65–3.23). Pooling EMS-shocked and non-defibrillated patients as controls attenuated both associations to non-significance. AED application occurred in 8.5% of public-area versus 1.9% of nonpublic AED-opportunity cases, highlighting a utilization gap.
Bystander AED application was associated with better survival and neurological outcomes, but estimates depended on the comparator definition. These observational findings also identify substantial underutilization in nonpublic settings.
Study limitation: Nonrandomized comparisons remain vulnerable to residual confounding; changing the reference group materially altered the estimated associations.
AI-generated from the published abstract with automated source checks. For research discovery; consult the original paper before applying findings.