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The benefits and use of shock advisory defibrillators in hospitals
Author(s) -
Dwyer Trudy,
Mosel Williams Leonie,
Jacobs Ian
Publication year - 2004
Publication title -
international journal of nursing practice
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.62
H-Index - 55
eISSN - 1440-172X
pISSN - 1322-7114
DOI - 10.1111/j.1440-172x.2003.00463.x
Subject(s) - defibrillation , medicine , medical emergency , basic life support , automated external defibrillator , intensive care medicine , resuscitation , emergency medicine , cardiopulmonary resuscitation , cardiology
Survival to discharge following a cardiac arrest is dependent on rapid and effective basic and advanced life support. Paramount to a rapid response is access to sufficiently trained health care providers, who have a duty to perform basic life support and initiate early defibrillation. In hospitals, defibrillation remains the domain of specially prepared staff and the type of defibrillator used might be crucial to rapid and effective defibrillation. The advent of automatic external defibrillators has increased the range of people who can use a defibrillator successfully. For nurses, arguably a lack of familiarity about the benefits of and the use of automatic external defibrillators are the greatest barriers to nurse‐initiated defibrillation programmes. This paper explores the use of automatic external defibrillators, their relationship to the associated defibrillator waveforms and the benefits of their use by registered nurses within the hospital setting.