Association of patient-reported outcomes with hospitalization risk in atrial fibrillation

Patient-reported outcomes in atrial fibrillation (AF) are increasingly used to evaluate treatment efficacy and as endpoints in clinical trials. Few studies have related patient-reported outcomes in AF to clinical events and outcomes. We examined the association between patient-reported outcomes and hospitalization risk in individuals with AF receiving care at a regional healthcare system. We related the AF Effect on QualiTy of Life (AFEQT), a validated measure (range 0–100) with higher scores indicating superior AF-specific patient-reported outcomes, to hospitalization events in a cohort with prevalent AF. We determined incidence rates for hospitalization events (all-cause, cardiac-, or AF-related) across quartiles of AFEQT scores. We used the Andersen-Gill method to account for multiple hospitalization events per individual and compared the risks of hospitalization across AFEQT quartiles in multivariable-adjusted models. In 339 individuals with AF (age 72.3 ± 10.1 years; 43% women) followed for median 2.6 years (range 0–3.4 years), we observed 417 total hospitalization events. We identified increased incidence rates of hospitalization with progressively decreased AFEQT quartile. Relative to those in the highest AFEQT quartile, individuals in the lowest AFEQT quartile had 3-fold greater risk of all-cause hospitalization (95% Confidence Interval [CI] 1.67–6.57, p < 0.001) and 5-fold greater risk of cardiac hospitalization (95% CI 1.66–13.80, p = 0.004). We identified a progressive association between patient-reported outcomes in AF and risk of hospitalization events. Our results underscore the relevance of patient-reported outcomes to clinical adversity and prognosis in AF.