Public knowledge and willingness in the use of public access defibrillation of Hubei Province in China: A cross-sectional study

To understand the current status of public knowledge of automated external defibrillator (AED) and their willingness to use public AED in Hubei Province, along with the influencing factors. A self-designed questionnaire was used for convenience sampling of the public in Hubei Province. The questionnaire consists of three parts: basic information, AED knowledge questions, and willingness to use public AED and influencing factors. Data was collected between May 2022 and March 2023. A total of 1561 valid questionnaires were collected from 1602 distributed. In the study conducted in Hubei Province, it was found that 875 respondents (56.05%) had knowledge of automated external defibrillator, and they achieved an average score of 39.27 ± 29.17. The pass rate for the survey was 28.11%. Several factors were identified as significant influencing factors, including gender, age, education level, occupation related to medicine, residential location in the past three years, family members with cardiovascular disease, marital status, residential population density, whether there are family members over 65 years old, and participation in AED-related training (P < .05).Furthermore, 692 respondents (72.99%) expressed their willingness to cardiopulmonary resuscitation for someone experiencing cardiac arrest. On the other hand, 686 respondents (43.95%) had no knowledge of AED. Among those who were not willing to perform defibrillation, the highest percentages cited "fear of incorrect use" (129, 31.2%) and "fear of harming the patient" (121, 29.3%) as their reasons. The study also found statistically significant differences in the willingness to use public AED based on participation in training, education level, residential location, family members with cardiovascular disease, population density, and the presence of elderly family members aged 65 or over (P < .05). In conclusion, the study highlights the general lack of public knowledge regarding AED in Hubei Province. However, there is a strong willingness among respondents to provide help during cardiac arrest situations. To improve the chances of survival for cardiac arrest patients, it is crucial to strengthen public AED training programs.