Improved survival after out-of-hospital cardiac arrest and use of automated external defibrillators.

Background: In recent years, a wider use of automated external defibrillators (AEDs) to treat out-of-hospital cardiac arrest was advocated in The Netherlands. We aimed to establish whether survival with favorable neurologic outcome after out-of-hospital cardiac arrest has significantly increased, and, if so, whether this is attributable to AED use.

Methods And Results: We performed a population-based cohort study, including patients with out-of-hospital cardiac arrest from cardiac causes between 2006 and 2012, excluding emergency medical service-witnessed arrests.