Annals of emergency medicine
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Meta Analysis
Effect of out-of-hospital defibrillation by basic life support providers on cardiac arrest mortality: a metaanalysis.
Although some studies demonstrate otherwise, we hypothesized that metaanalysis would demonstrate a reduction in the relative risk of mortality when basic life support (BLS) providers can defibrillate out-of-hospital cardiac arrest patients. ⋯ BLS defibrillation can reduce the relative risk of death for out-of-hospital cardiac arrest victims in ventricular fibrillation. Weaknesses in individual study designs and regional clustering limit the strength of this metaanalysis and conclusion.