AJM OnlineReviewQuality of Life in Patients with Atrial Fibrillation: A Systematic Review
Section snippets
Search Strategy
The electronic databases MEDLINE (1966 to January 31, 2005), EMBASE (1980 to January 31, 2005), PSYCHINFO (1887 to January 31, 2005), and CINAHL (1980 to January 31, 2005) were searched to identify potential articles. The following search terms were entered as Medical Subject Heading (MeSH) terms and textwords, or their equivalent, in the various databases: “Atrial Fibrillation,” “Atrial Flutter,” “Arrhythmia,” “Paroxysmal Atrial Fibrillation,” “Persistent Atrial Fibrillation,” “Permanent
Results
The searches resulted in 593 citations, of which 49 studies11, 12, 13, 14, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30, 31, 32, 33, 34, 35, 36, 37, 38, 39, 40, 41, 42, 43, 44, 45, 46, 47, 48, 49, 50, 51, 52, 53, 54, 55, 56, 57, 58, 59, 60 published between 1988 and 2005 met the inclusion criteria (Figure 1). All included studies were written in English with the exception of one, which was translated from German. The majority (89.8%) of studies assessed QoL in patients with AF
Discussion
Patients with AF have significantly poorer QoL compared with healthy controls,11, 12, 13, 16, 18, 19, 51 the general population,20, 38, 47 and other patients with coronary heart disease.16 The majority of studies examining QoL in patients with AF focused on highly selected and symptomatic patients undergoing interventions such as ablate and pace procedures,21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30, 31, 32, 33, 34 the Maze operation,46, 47, 48 PV isolation,40, 41, 43, 44 internal or external
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