Sex Differences in Quality of Life and their Explanatory Variables in Patients with Non-Valvular Atrial Fibrillation

Announcing a new article publication for Cardiovascular Innovations and Applications journal. Women with atrial fibrillation (AF) have poorer quality of life (QoL) than men; however, the factors contributing to the poorer QoL in women is unclear.

The authors of this article analyzed data for 3562 patients with non-valvular AF enrolled in the China Registry of Atrial Fibrillation. The Medical Outcomes Study 36-item Short-Form Health Survey (SF-36) was used to evaluate QoL, which was compared between women and men. A multivariate logistic regression analysis model was used to explore factors potentially explaining the sex difference in QoL.

Overall, 43.3% of the cohort comprised women (n=1541) who were older than their male counterparts (72 ± 9.8 vs. 68 ± 11.9 years, P<0.001). Compared with men, women were more likely to have more symptoms, hypertension, diabetes mellitus, and heart failure. Women were less likely than men to receive catheter ablation (4.5% vs. 6.1%, P=0.044). Women also had lower physical component summary (PCS) scores (48 ± 9 vs. 51 ± 9, P<0.001) and mental component summary (MCS) scores (49 ± 10 vs. 51 ± 10, P<0.001) than men. In the multivariable analysis of the poorer PCS scores in women, patient age explained 32.9%, low socioeconomic status explained 20.0%, lifestyle explained 14.3%, cardiovascular comorbidities explained 15.7%, the presence of more symptoms explained 5.7%, and less catheter ablation explained 1.4%. These factors also explained similar proportions of the sex difference in MCS scores. Together, these factors explained 54.3% of the poorer physical function status and 46.8% of the poorer mental function status in women than men.

Women with AF had poorer QoL than men. The following factors partly explained the poorer QoL in women: older age, low level of socioeconomic status, more cardiovascular comorbidities, less smoking and drinking, more symptoms, and less catheter ablation.

https://www.scienceopen.com/hosted-document?doi=10.15212/CVIA.2023.0017

CVIA is available on the ScienceOpen platform and at Cardiovascular Innovations and Applications. Submissions may be made using ScholarOne Manuscripts. There are no author submission or article processing fees. Cardiovascular Innovations and Applications is indexed in the EMBASE, EBSCO, ESCI, OCLC, Primo Central (Ex Libris), Sherpa Romeo, NISC (National Information Services Corporation), DOAJ, Index Copernicus, Research4Life and Ulrich’s web Databases. Follow CVIA on Twitter @CVIA_Journal; or Facebook.

Qing Li, Yinong Chen and Luyao Yu et al. Sex Differences in Quality of Life and their Explanatory Variables in Patients with Non-Valvular Atrial Fibrillation. CVIA. 2023. Vol. 8(1). DOI: 10.15212/CVIA.2023.0017