The significance of an outpatient multidisciplinary educational consultation to atrial fibrillation patients before electrical cardioversion

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Atrial fibrillation (AF) patients may have many concerns related to their disease and to the electrical cardioversion (ECV) procedure. An outpatient multidisciplinary educational consultation before ECV may reduce their concerns.

This study aimed to investigate perceived support from healthcare professionals and symptoms of anxiety, depression among AF patients receiving multidisciplinary educational consultation before ECV, compared to patients receiving usual care.

Patients with persistent AF (n = 217) invited to undergo ECV at an AF outpatient clinic were non-randomly divided in two groups based on the need for an updated echo description: 1) multidisciplinary educational consultation before ECV (n = 115), and 2) usual care from a municipality physician before ECV (n =102). Both groups completed validated questionnaires on symptoms of anxiety and depression and perceived support from healthcare professionals.

Analysis of covariance (ANCOVA) revealed that patients receiving multidisciplinary educational consultation perceived higher constructive support from healthcare professionals (Mean [M] = 3.06 ± 0.79 vs 2.52 ± 0.98; Effect size [ES] = 0.66; p < 0.000), as well as lesser non-constructive support from healthcare professionals (M = 1.19 ± 0.90 vs 1.53 ± 0.87; ES 0.40; p = 0.003), compared to patients receiving usual care. The analyses were controlled for gender, age and history of ECV. In this group the patients had also lesser symptoms of anxiety (M= 4.17 ± 4.11 vs 5.40 ± 4.00; ES = 0.28; p = 0.042), and depression (M = 3.35 ± 3.06 vs 4.77 ± 3.81; ES = 0.38; p = 0.005).

The findings indicate that a multidisciplinary educational consultation before ECV improves the patient’s perception of constructive support from healthcare professionals and reduce their symptoms of anxiety and depression.