Purpose To evaluate a model for calculating the risk of AF and its relationship with the incidence of ischemic stroke and prevalence of cognitive decline. Materials and Methods It was a multicenter, observational, retrospective, community-based study of a cohort of general population ≥6ct 35 years, between 01/01/2016 and 31/12/2018. Setting: Primary Care. Participants: 46,706 people ≥65 years with an active medical history in any of the primary care teams of the territory, information accessible through shared history and without previous known AF. Interventions: The model to stratify the risk of AF (PI) has been previously published and included the variables sex, age, mean heart rate, mean weight and CHA2DS2VASc score. Main measurements: For each risk group, the incidence density/1000 person/years of AF and stroke, number of cases required to detect a new AF, the prevalence of cognitive decline, Kendall correlation, and ROC curve were calculated. Results The prognostic index was obtained in 37,731 cases (80.8%) from lowest (Q1) to highest risk (Q4). A total of 1244 new AFs and 234 stroke episodes were diagnosed. Q3-4 included 53.8% of all AF and 69.5% of strokes in men; 84.2% of all AF and 85.4% of strokes in women; and 77.4% of cases of cognitive impairment. There was a significant linear correlation between the risk-AF score and the Rankin score (p < 0.001), the Pfeiffer score (p < 0.001), but not NIHSS score (p 0.150). The overall NNS was 1/19. Conclusion Risk stratification allows identifying high-risk individuals in whom to intervene on modifiable risk factors, prioritizing the diagnosis of AF and investigating cognitive status.

(1) Background: The link between diabetes and hypertension is mutual and reciprocal, increasing the risks for the development of atrial fibrillation (AF). The main objective was to develop a prediction model for AF in a population with both diabetes and hypertension at five years of follow-up. (2) Methods: A multicenter and community-based cohort study was undertaken of 8237 hypertensive diabetic patients without AF between 1 January 2103 and 31 December 2017. Multivariate Cox proportional-hazards regression models were used to identify predictors AF and to stratify risk scores by quartiles. (3) Results: AF incidence was 10.5/1000 people/years (95% confidence interval (CI) 9.5–11.5), higher in men. The independent prognostic factors identified: age (hazard ratio (HR) 1.07 95% CI 1.05–1.09, p < 0.001), weight (HR 1.03 95% CI 1.02–1.04, p < 0.001), CHA2DS2VASc score (HR 1.57 95% CI 1.16–2.13, p = 0.003) and female gender (HR 0.55 95% CI 0.37–0.82, p = 0.004). Q4 (highest-risk group for AF) had the highest AF incidence, stroke and mortality, and the smallest number needed to screen to detect one case of AF. (4) Conclusions: Risk-based screening for AF should be used in high cardiovascular risk patients as the hypertensive diabetics, for treatment of modifiable cardiovascular risk, and monitoring AF detection.

Background Atrial fibrillation (AF) is often asymptomatic, and screening is not routinely undertaken. Objective Evaluate the feasibility and effectiveness of a population-based case finding program and to identify the enablers of and/or barriers to its implementation. Methods We conducted a cross-sectional study of a health care case finding program for AF from 1 January 2016, to 31 December 2017, that included 48 336 people ≥60 years of age in the region of Terresde l’Ebre (Catalonia, Spain). We analysed the effect on the prevalence of AF and, stratified by age, on the incidence of new diagnoses of AF. We assessed the sociodemographic and clinical variables related to the realization of a case finding. Results A total of 32 090 (62.4%) people were screened for AF. We observed a significant increase in the AF prevalence after 2 years of program intervention (5.9–7.7%; P &lt; 0.001). The detection of new AF cases was significantly higher in the case finding group across the whole of the age range, and 765 (2.6%) new AF cases were diagnosed using case finding. The factors that were significantly associated with an underuse of case finding were: age &lt;70 years, urban residence, institutionalized status, Pfeiffer score ≥2, Charlson score &gt;3 and number of visits &lt;7/year. Conclusions A health care program of case finding is feasible and is associated with a significant increase in the prevalence and incidence of AF. The results depend on factors such as the ease of access to health care, age, place of residence and comorbidities.

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Background Demographic aging is a generalised event and the proportion of older adults is increasing rapidly worldwide with chronic pathologies, disability, and complexity of health needs. The intracerebral haemorrhage (ICH) has devastating consequences in high risk people. This study aims to quantify the incidence of ICH in complex chronic patients (CCP). Methods This is a multicentre, retrospective and community-based cohort study of 3594 CCPs followed up from 01/01/2013 to 31/12/2017 in primary care without a history of previous ICH episode. The cases were identified from clinical records encoded with ICD-10 (10th version of the International Classification of Diseases) in the e-SAP database of the Catalan Health Institute. The main variable was the ICH episode during the study period. Demographic, clinical, functional, cognitive and pharmacological variables were included. Descriptive and logistic regression analyses were carried out to identify the variables associated with suffering an ICH. The independent risk factors were obtained from logistic regression models, ruling out the variables included in the HAS-BLED score, to avoid duplication effects. Results are presented as odds ratio (OR) and 95% confidence interval (CI). The analysis with the resulting model was also stratified by sex. Results 161 (4.4%) participants suffered an ICH episode. Mean age 87 ± 9 years; 55.9% women. The ICH incidence density was 151/10000 person-years [95%CI 127–174], without differences by sex. Related to subjects without ICH, presented a higher prevalence of arterial hypertension (83.2% vs. 74.9%; p = 0.02), hypercholesterolemia (55.3% vs. 47.4%, p = 0.05), cardiovascular disease (36.6% vs. 28.9%; p = 0.03), and use of antiplatelet drugs (64.0% vs. 52.9%; p = 0.006). 93.2% had a HAS-BLED score ≥ 3. The independent risk factors for ICH were identified: HAS-BLED ≥3 [OR 3.54; 95%CI 1.88–6.68], hypercholesterolemia [OR 1.62; 95%CI 1.11–2.35], and cardiovascular disease [OR 1.48 IC95% 1.05–2.09]. The HAS_BLED ≥3 score showed a high sensitivity [0.93 CI95% 0.89–0.97] and negative predictive value [0.98 (CI95% 0.83–1.12)]. Conclusions In the CCP subgroup the incidence density of ICH was 5–60 times higher than that observed in elder and general population. The use of bleeding risk score as the HAS-BLED scale could improve the preventive approach of those with higher risk of ICH. Trial registration This study was retrospectively registered in ClinicalTrials.gov (NCT03247049) on August 11/2017.