University of Twente Student Theses
Investigating the Relationship between Out-of-Hospital Cardiac Arrest Risk and the Distribution of AEDs in the Municipality of Enschede
Keijser, Ella (2023) Investigating the Relationship between Out-of-Hospital Cardiac Arrest Risk and the Distribution of AEDs in the Municipality of Enschede.
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| Abstract: | Background – Globally, the out-of-hospital cardiac arrest (OHCA) survival rates are low, with only 10% of survival. However, with the presence of readily accessible automated external defibrillators (AEDs), survival rates can become significantly improved. To ensure quick access to AEDs, it is crucial to effectively distribute the available number of AEDs across a given area. A strategy for AED distribution is that more AEDs are placed in high OHCA risk areas, and less in low risk areas. One example of such high OHCA risk area is the municipality of Enschede, which is therefore used as the study area for this study. This study aims to find the relationship between the spatial distribution of OHCA risk and the coverage of AEDs in the municipality of Enschede. Methods and Results – For this observational cross-sectional study, all AEDs in the municipality of Enschede were included (n=169). The percentage area covered by AEDs was calculated for each neighborhood of Enschede. Besides that, seven OHCA risk factors were included; socioeconomic status (SES), smoking, BMI greater than 25, population density, non-western background, elderly people and low-education level, which together form the overall OHCA risk score. With a two sample t-Test (P < 0.05) and by making boxplots, the relationship of AED coverage and OHCA risk was determined. No significant relation was found between AED coverage and overall OHCA risk score (P=0.25) in the municipality of Enschede. Taking all factors separately, the neighborhoods with a higher OHCA risk on education level (P=0.036*), population density (P=0.00*), smoking (P=0.001*), high BMI (P=0.291), not-western background (P=0.067) and SES-score (P=0.059) are more likely to be fully covered by AEDs. On the other hand, neighborhoods with a higher OHCA risk on elderly people are less likely to be fully covered by AEDs. Conclusion – In conclusion, neighborhoods with a higher overall OHCA risk do have the same coverage rate as neighborhoods with a low overall OHCA risk score in the municipality of Enschede. This indicates that AEDs are not effectively distributed over the area of Enschede. More research on a broader scale is needed to implement OHCA risk in AED distribution models and to generalize it to other areas. |
| Item Type: | Essay (Bachelor) |
| Faculty: | TNW: Science and Technology |
| Subject: | 74 (human) geography, cartography, town and country planning, demography |
| Programme: | Health Sciences BSc (56553) |
| Link to this item: | https://purl.utwente.nl/essays/95743 |
| Export this item as: | BibTeX EndNote HTML Citation Reference Manager |
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