NCT06458829

Promoting Atrial Fibrillation Screening in Primary Care

Effects of an Implementation Program to Promote Atrial Fibrillation Screening in Primary Care Centers in China

• Status: Not Yet Recruiting
• Phase: N/A
• Study type: Interventional
• Enrollment: 4,800 (estimated)
• Sponsor: Sun Yat-sen University · Academic / Other
• Sex: All
• Age: 65 Years
• Healthy volunteers: Accepted

Summary

Atrial fibrillation is the most common sustained cardiac arrhythmia in adults. Due to the asymptomatic and paroxysmal nature (randomly and shortly occurring of atrial fibrillation, and can therefore remain unnoticed) of atrial fibrillation. Atrial fibrillation increases the risk of stroke five fold if left untreated. Screening in old populations above age 65 years is helpful to find more atrial fibrillation cases. However, screening for atrial fibrillation is not well implemented in China. Thus, this project aims to promote atrial fibrillation screening in primary care centers in China. We will develop an intervention program (SEARCH-AF) and examine the effects (including the clinical effects and implementation effects) of program.

Detailed description

Six health care centers in Guangzhou China will be included. We will adopt a stepped-wedge randomized trial design. Two health care centers will be randomly selected to receive the SEARCH-AF program at each step (a total of three steps). The SEARCH-AF program will include opportunistic screening among those who aged 65 or above and screening promoting strategies. The A total of 4800 old adults will be screened for atrial fibrillation using a handheld single-lead ECG tool upon their visit to family doctor, with 800 for each health care center. The promoting strategy will be developed based on the Consolidated Framework for Implementation Research and include leadership engagement, policy support, providing screening resources, staff training on atrial fibrillation screening and management. The whole study will last for 18 months. We will examine the intervention effects including clinical effects (atrial fibrillation detection rate, anticoagulation rate, atrial fibrillation related hospital visits, and stroke related end points) and implementation effects (cost-effectiveness of the intervention, compliance to atrial fibrillation screening ).

Conditions

• Atrial Fibrillation New Onset

Interventions

Type	Name	Description
BEHAVIORAL	SEARCH-AF	SEARCH-AF program will include opportunistic screening among old adults during primary care visits and promoting strategies. Promoting strategies will be developed based on the Consolidated Framework for Implementation Research framework which may include leadership engagement, policy support, providing screening resources, atrial fibrillation screening and management training. General practitioner or nurse in each health care center will implement point-on-care screening. The intervention will last for six months and followed up for another six months.

Timeline

• Start date: 2024-07-01
• Primary completion: 2025-06-30
• Completion: 2026-12-30
• First posted: 2024-06-14
• Last updated: 2024-06-14