Longitudinal Changes in Health‐Related Quality of Life in Patients With Atrial Fibrillation

Abstract

Background Optimizing health‐related quality of life (HRQoL) is an important aim of atrial fibrillation (AF) treatment. Little is known about patients' long‐term HRQoL trajectories and the impact of patient and disease characteristics. The aim of this study was to describe HRQoL trajectories in an observational AF study population and in clusters of patients with similar patient and disease characteristics. Methods and Results We used 5‐year follow‐up data from the Swiss–Atrial Fibrillation prospective cohort, which enrolled 2415 patients with prevalent AF from 2014 to 2017. HRQoL data, collected yearly, comprised EuroQoL‐5 dimension utilities and EuroQoL visual analog scale scores. Patient clusters with similar characteristics at enrollment were identified using hierarchical clustering. HRQoL trajectories were analyzed descriptively and with inverse probability‐weighted regressions. Effects of postbaseline clinical events were additionally assessed using time‐shifted event variables. Among 2412 (99.9%) patients with available baseline HRQoL, 3 clusters of patients with AF were identified, which we characterized as follows: “cardiovascular dominated,” “isolated symptomatic,” and “severely morbid without cardiovascular disease.” Utilities and EuroQoL visual analog scale scores remained stable over time for the full population and the clusters; isolated symptomatic patients showed higher levels of HRQoL. Utilities were reduced after occurrences of stroke, hospitalization for heart failure, and bleeding, by −0.12 (95% CI, −0.18 to −0.06), −0.10 (95% CI, −0.13 to −0.08), and −0.06 (95% CI, −0.08 to −0.04), respectively, on a 0 to 1 utility scale. Utility of surviving patients returned to preevent levels 4 years after heart failure hospitalization; 3 years after bleeding; and 1 year after stroke. Conclusions In patients with prevalent AF, HRQoL was stable over time, irrespective of baseline patient characteristics. Clinical events of hospitalization for heart failure, stroke, and bleeding had only a temporary effect on HRQoL.