Arrhythmias and conduction disturbancesRole of gender and personality on quality-of-life impairment in intermittent atrial fibrillation☆
Section snippets
Methods
The Canadian Trial of Atrial Fibrillation was a double-blinded, randomized, multicenter study of the effect of amiodarone versus sotalol or propafenone in preventing AF recurrences in patients with a history of paroxysmal or persistent AF. The details of the protocol have previously been published.15, 16 Consecutive outpatients participating in the trial, >18 years old, who could read English or French and had no cognitive or sensory limitations, were asked to participate and were given
Results
A total of 294 patients with AF (82% of patients eligible for QOL study) returned completed baseline questionnaires; 264 (73%) had complete baseline and 3-month data, and 170 (47%) had baseline, 3-, and 12-month data. The group with complete data at the baseline and 3-month assessment provided data for analyses, as inclusion of the 12-month results did not change any of the findings. There were no significant changes in any QOL variable from the 3- to 12-month assessment. Inclusion of the
Discussion
The main result of this study is that in a population of patients with newly diagnosed, symptomatic AF, QOL is significantly more impaired in women than men despite comparable disease severity. These results are consistent with previous findings of greater physical and psychological debilitation and worse QOL in women after a cardiac event.8, 23 However, the only other study of arrhythmias that incorporated a gender analysis in the results revealed that there were no gender differences in
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This study was supported by a grant from Wyeth-Ayerst Canada Inc., Montreal, Quebec; and an operating grant from the Medical Research Council of Canada, Ottowa, Ontario.