This systematic review compared AED use with manual defibrillation for in-hospital cardiac arrest outside specialized areas, synthesizing six reports from five observational cohorts descriptively. Neurologically favorable survival findings were inconsistent, with improvement reported after a combined AED-and-training intervention in one study. The largest multicentre cohort found no significant difference in neurological disability among survivors (adjusted relative risk 1.01, 95% CI 0.93–1.09). ROSC and survival to discharge were not consistently improved. Evidence was insufficient to determine whether routine ward-level AED deployment improves outcomes.
The review does not establish a patient-centred outcome benefit from routine ward-level AED deployment. Heterogeneous observational evidence leaves the balance between earlier defibrillation and possible compression interruptions uncertain.
Study limitation: Included studies were observational and heterogeneous, with incomplete characterization of CPR quality and training.
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