The role of early defibrillation has been well established as a pivotal ring of the chain of survival since the nineties. In the following years, the scientific evidences about the beneficial role of early defibrillation have grown, and most of all, it has been demonstrated that the main determinant of survival is the time of defibrillation more than the type of rescuer. Early lay defibrillation was shown to be more effective than delayed defibrillation by healthcare providers. Moreover, because of the ease of use of automated external defibrillators (AEDs), it has been shown that also untrained lay rescuers can safely use an AED leading the guidelines to encourage early defibrillation by untrained lay bystanders. Although strong evidence has demonstrated that an increase in AED use leads to an increase in out-of-hospital cardiac arrest (OHCA) survival, the rate of defibrillation by laypeople is quite variable worldwide and very low in some realities. Our review of the literature about lay defibrillation highlights that the AED is a life-saving device as simple and well tolerated as underused.

自九十年代以来，早期除颤的作用已被确立为生存链的关键所在。在随后的几年中，有关早期除颤的有益作用的科学证据不断增长，最重要的是，已证明生存的主要决定因素是除颤时间远多于救助者的类型。早期奠定除颤已被证明比医疗保健提供者延迟除颤更有效。此外，由于易于使用自动体外除颤器（AED），因此显示未经培训的非专业救护人员也可以安全地使用AED，该AED领先于指导原则，以鼓励未经培训的非专业的旁观者进行早期除颤。尽管有确凿的证据表明，使用AED的增加会导致院外心脏骤停（OHCA）存活率的增加，但在全球范围内，外行人的除颤率变化很大，在某些情况下非常低。我们对有关卧式除颤的文献的回顾表明，AED是一种救生设备，其简单性和良好的耐受性都未得到充分利用。