You are here

  • Home
  • Archive
  • Volume 11, Issue 4
  • An automated external defibrillator in the home did not reduce all-cause mortality in patients at risk of cardiac arrestCommentary

Article Text

Article menu
Download PDFPDF
Treatment
An automated external defibrillator in the home did not reduce all-cause mortality in patients at risk of cardiac arrest

https://doi.org/10.1136/ebn.11.4.113

Statistics from Altmetric.com

    Request Permissions

    If you wish to reuse any or all of this article please use the link below which will take you to the Copyright Clearance Center’s RightsLink service. You will be able to get a quick price and instant permission to reuse the content in many different ways.

    G H Bardy

    Dr G H Bardy, Seattle Institute for Cardiac Research, Seattle, WA, USA; gbardy@sicr.org

    QUESTION

    In stable patients at increased risk of sudden cardiac arrest, does having an automated external defibrillator (AED) in the home reduce all-cause mortality compared with training in usual emergency procedures?

    METHODS

    Design:

    randomised controlled trial (Home Automated External Defibrillator Trial [HAT]).

    Allocation:

    {concealed}.*

    Blinding:

    blinded (outcome adjudication committee).

    Follow-up period:

    median 37 months.

    Setting:

    178 clinical sites in the USA, Canada, Australia, the UK, New Zealand, the Netherlands, and Germany.

    Patients:

    7001 patients (median age 62 y, 83% men) who had had anterior-wall myocardial infarction, were not candidates for implantable cardioverter-defibrillator (ICD) therapy, and had a spouse or companion at home who was willing and able to perform the study interventions.

    Intervention:

    provision of an AED for home use (n = 3495) …

    View Full Text

    Footnotes

    • Source of funding: National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute; Philips Medical Systems; Laerdal Medical.