New Classification Scheme for Atrial Fibrillation Symptom Severity and Burden

Although atrial fibrillation (AF) symptom severity is used to guide clinical care, a simple, standardized assessment tool is not available for routine clinical use. We sought to develop and validate a patient-generated score and classification scheme for AF-related symptom severity and burden. Atrial Fibrillation Symptom and Burden, a simple 2-part questionnaire, was designed to assess (1) AF symptom severity using 8 questions to determine how symptoms affect daily life and (2) AF burden using 6 questions to measure AF frequency, duration, and health-care utilization. The resulting score was used to classify patients into 4 classes of symptom and burden severity. Patients were asked to complete the questionnaire, a survey evaluating the questionnaire, and an Short Form-12v2 generic health-related quality-of-life form. Validation of the questionnaire included assessments of its reliability and construct and known groups validity. The strength of interrater agreement between patient-generated and blinded provider–generated classifications of AF symptom severity was also assessed. The survey had good internal consistency (Cronbach α >0.82) and reproducibility (intraclass correlation coefficient = 0.93). There was a good linear correlation with health-related quality-of-life aggregates measured by Pearson correlation coefficient (r = 0.62 and 0.42 vs physical component summary and mental component summary, respectively). Compared with physical and mental component summary scores, the patient-generated symptom severity classification scheme showed robust discrimination between mild and moderate severity (p <0.0001 and p = 0.0009) and between moderate and severe groups (p = 0.0001 and p = 0.012). In conclusion, this simple patient-generated AF classification scheme is robust, internally consistent, reproducible, and highly correlated with standardized quality-of-life measures.