Purpose of the study
Prompt access to public access AEDs is essential for them to achieve their lifesaving potential. Keeping an AED in a locked cabinet is hypothesised to reduce the risk of the AED being unavailable due to vandalism or theft. The aim of this study was to examine the frequency of reports of vandalism or theft of AEDs according to whether AEDs were stored in locked or unlocked cabinets.
Materials and methods
The Circuit (www.thecircuit.uk) is a registration of publicly accessible AEDs that synchronises with the dispatch systems within the UK’s Ambulance Services. We interrogated the database for reports of AEDs vandalism / theft between 11th June 2019 and 19th January 2022. The proportion of AEDs reported as vandalised or stolen were compared using Chi-squared statistic.
Results
31,938 AEDs were registered on the database during the study period. 75 incidents of AEDs vandalism/theft. 74 (0.23%) were unique reports, one AED was vandalised/stolen twice. The proportion of unique incidents of vandalism / theft were higher in AEDs in locked (54/16,153, 0.34%) compared to unlocked AED cabinets (20/15,785, 0.12%), P<0.01. Vandalism / theft in restricted access AEDs was lower than in public accessible AEDs (0.07% vs 0.28%, P=0.003).
Conclusions
The proportion of AEDs being reported as vandalised or stolen was overall low; higher in locked compared to unlocked cabinets. Further evaluation to understand the reasons and any policy implications of these findings is required.
Funding
British Heart Foundation (The Circuit: the national defibrillator network), National Institute for Health Research (NIHR) Applied Research Collaboration (ARC) West Midlands.
AED location Locked status Total number of AEDs Vandalism / theft AED public access Unlocked 9,761 19 AED public access Locked 15,391 51 AED restricted Unlocked 6,024 1 AED restricted Locked 762 4

The influence of locked automated external defibrillators (AEDs) cabinets on the rates of vandalism and theft.

Implementation of the Guidelines - How do we put the new ERC Guidelines into practice?

On 16 and 17 June, we are organising our first-ever hybrid congress. You will be able to join us live at the beautiful conference venue in Antwerp, Belgium and present your Poster. 

We are happy to welcome you to Resuscitation 2022!