Abstract
Purpose: This paper is to determine whether automatic defibrillators (AEDs) deployed across communities make a contribution to prevent death in patients with acute cardiac arrest out-of-hospital. Methods: A total of 30,179 cases of cardiac arrest investigation data from the Korea Centers for Disease Control and Prevention was matched to those on emergency medical statistics drawn from annual report for the 2018 Central Emergency Medical Center, and statistics from the National Statistical Office in 2018. Results: Multiple logistic regression analyses revealed that availability of emergency medical resources across associated with different survival rates at emergency room after taking variability of the patient's personal characteristics and episodic situational characteristics held constant. The survival rate was 1.71 times higher for patients living in communities with more than 105 AEDs avaiable per 100,000 inhabitants than for those living in communities with less than 55 AEDs. Conclusion: The survival-related factors of patients with acute cardiac arrest that occurred out-of-hospital were found to be associated with patients' and episodic situational characteristics. The hospital stage were found to be associated with patients characteristics and episodic situational characteristics, The variability of AED available in a community has an impact on survival rate after emergency room treatment.