Quality of Life in Atrial Fibrillation: Measurement and Intervention Impact
Quality of Life in Atrial Fibrillation: Measurement and Intervention Impact
Quality of life (QoL) is of central importance in atrial fibrillation as both a treatment goal and an endpoint in the evaluation of new therapies. QoL appears to be impaired in the majority of patients with AF. A number of interventions for AF have been shown to improve QoL, including pharmacologic and nonpharmacologic rate control, antiarrhythmic drugs, and nonpharmacologic rhythm control strategies. This paper will review the rationale, design, strengths, and limitations of the questionnaires most commonly used to assess QoL in AF studies, and present QoL outcomes from major studies of AF interventions.
The issue of quality of life (QoL) is critically important in both the treatment of atrial fibrillation (AF) and in the study of new therapies for AF. Since few interventions for AF have been shown to reduce mortality and serious morbidity, the treatment of AF remains focused largely on controlling symptoms and improving or preserving QoL. For AF clinical trials, end points focused exclusively on the assessment of rhythm status (e.g., time to first recurrence or rhythm at the end of some follow-up interval) suffer from the potential weakness of not accurately reflecting the degree to which patients feel symptomatically improved by the intervention under study. The evaluation of QoL has therefore also become a crucial issue in AF clinical studies. Given the primacy of QoL issues in AF, we believe practitioners and researchers would benefit from a deeper understanding of QoL methods and published outcomes in AF patients.
Abstract and Introduction
Abstract
Quality of life (QoL) is of central importance in atrial fibrillation as both a treatment goal and an endpoint in the evaluation of new therapies. QoL appears to be impaired in the majority of patients with AF. A number of interventions for AF have been shown to improve QoL, including pharmacologic and nonpharmacologic rate control, antiarrhythmic drugs, and nonpharmacologic rhythm control strategies. This paper will review the rationale, design, strengths, and limitations of the questionnaires most commonly used to assess QoL in AF studies, and present QoL outcomes from major studies of AF interventions.
Introduction
The issue of quality of life (QoL) is critically important in both the treatment of atrial fibrillation (AF) and in the study of new therapies for AF. Since few interventions for AF have been shown to reduce mortality and serious morbidity, the treatment of AF remains focused largely on controlling symptoms and improving or preserving QoL. For AF clinical trials, end points focused exclusively on the assessment of rhythm status (e.g., time to first recurrence or rhythm at the end of some follow-up interval) suffer from the potential weakness of not accurately reflecting the degree to which patients feel symptomatically improved by the intervention under study. The evaluation of QoL has therefore also become a crucial issue in AF clinical studies. Given the primacy of QoL issues in AF, we believe practitioners and researchers would benefit from a deeper understanding of QoL methods and published outcomes in AF patients.
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