Key result
Current AF QoL tools lack consensus and rigorous validation, demanding novel holistic assessment methods.
Why the study?
There are no globally adopted guidelines or consensus on how to assess quality of life in patients with atrial fibrillation.
This review highlights the lack of consensus in assessing quality of life in atrial fibrillation patients and proposes a novel, holistic assessment method.
Existing AF QoL tools warrant cautious clinical use; leaves open need for validated holistic measures in future trials.
Atrial fibrillation (AF) represents the most common supraventricular arrhythmia of clinical significance associated with increased mortality and morbidity, especially stroke and heart failure. While AF is rarely life-threatening arrhythmia, the symptoms may vary from totally asymptomatic in up to a one third of affected population to severe symptoms deteriorating significantly patients' quality of life (QoL). There is currently no globally adopted guidelines on how to assess QoL in patients with AF and AF-associated QoL may be viewed from many perspectives, representing an extensive multidimensional construct. Numerous QoL instruments have been used in AF studies to date, again indicating the lack of general consensus. QoL measurement tools may be divided into two categories: generic instruments and AF-specific instruments or symptom scales. This minireview focuses on recently used questionnaires and proposing a novel, holistic method of QoL assessment in patients with AF.
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Šafaříková et al. (2021) conducted a review in Atrial fibrillation. Quality of life assessment instruments was evaluated. Current quality of life assessment tools for atrial fibrillation lack general consensus and rigorous validation, highlighting the need for a novel, holistic method of assessment for future trials.
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