Health-related quality of life questionnaires: an important method to evaluate patient outcomes in atrial fibrillation ablation.

Improvement of symptoms and health-related quality of life (HRQoL) are important treatment goals in the management of patients with atrial fibrillation (AF). For patients with symptomatic AF, catheter ablation is a commonly performed therapy for rhythm control. As a result, accurate documentation of the changes in HRQoL for these patients is necessary. This paper will review why HRQoL questionnaires are important in evaluating patient outcomes for AF ablation. First, we discuss how the results of these questionnaires can influence the cost-effectiveness of AF ablation. This may, in turn, affect healthcare resource allocation in favor of this therapy. Also, these questionnaires can provide additional information over traditional quantitative measures of AF burden in assessing post-ablation outcomes. By standardizing the way by which HRQoL is measured and reported, these questionnaires are valuable in evaluating this important patient-reported outcome in AF ablation trials.