Background and Purpose— Atrial fibrillation (AF) is a major risk factor for ischemic stroke. This study aims to update the knowledge about AF and associated stroke risk and benefits of anticoagulation. Methods— We extracted data from the hospital, specialized outpatient, and primary healthcare and drug registries in a Swedish region with 1.56 million residents. We identified all individuals who had received an AF diagnosis during the previous 5 years; all stroke events during 2010; and patients with AF aged ≥50 years who had received warfarin during 2009. Results— AF had been diagnosed in 38 446 subjects who were alive at the beginning of 2010 (prevalence of 3.2% in the adult [≥20 years] population); ≈46% received warfarin therapy. In 2010, there were 4565 ischemic stroke events and 861 intracranial hemorrhages. AF had been diagnosed in 38% of ischemic events (≥50% among those aged ≥80 years) and in 23% of intracranial hemorrhages. An AF diagnosis was often lacking in hospital discharge records after stroke events. Warfarin therapy was associated with an odds ratio of 0.50 (confidence interval, 0.43–0.57) for ischemic stroke and, despite an increased risk of intracranial hemorrhage, an odds ratio of 0.57 (confidence interval, 0.50–0.64) for the overall risk for stroke. Conclusions— AF is more common than present guidelines suggest. The attributable risk of AF for ischemic stroke increases with age and is close to that of hypertension in individuals aged ≥80 years. Because a majority of patients with AF with increased risk for stroke had not received anticoagulation therapy, there is a large potential for improvement.

BackgroundThe Short Form 36-Item Survey is one of the most commonly used instruments for assessing health-related quality of life. Two identical versions of the original instrument are currently available: the public domain, license free RAND-36 and the commercial SF-36.RAND-36 is not available in Swedish. The purpose of this study was threefold: to translate and culturally adapt the RAND-36 into Swedish; to evaluate its reliability and responsiveness using Svensson’s method for paired ordered categorical data; and to assess the usability of an electronic version of the questionnaire.The translation process included forward and backward translations and reconciliation. Test-retest reliability was examined during a period of two-weeks in 84 patients undergoing dialysis for chronic kidney disease. Responsiveness was examined in 97 patients before and 2 months after a cardiac rehabilitation program. Usability tests and cognitive debriefing of the electronic questionnaire were carried out with 18 patients.ResultsThe Swedish translation of the RAND-36 was conceptually equivalent to the English version. Test-retest reliability was supported by non-significant relative position (RP) values among dialysis patients for all RAND-36 subscales (range − 0.02 to 0.10; all confidence intervals (CI) included zero). Responsiveness was demonstrated by significant improvements in RP values among cardiac rehabilitation patients for all subscales (range 0.22–0.36; lower limits of all CI > 0.1) except two subscales (General health, RP -0.02; CI -0.13 to 0.10; and Role functioning/emotional, RP 0.03; CI -0.09 to 0.16). In cardiac rehabilitation patients, sizable individual variation (RV > 0.2) was also shown for the Pain, Energy/fatigue and Social functioning subscales.The electronic version of RAND-36 was found easy and intuitive to use.ConclusionsOur results provide evidence supporting the reliability and responsiveness of the newly translated Swedish RAND-36 and the user-friendliness of the electronic version. Svensson’s method for paired ordinal data was able to characterize not only the direction and size of differences among the patients’ responses at different time points but also variations in response patterns within groups. The method is therefore, besides being suitable for ordinal data, also an important and novel tool for gaining insights into patients’ response patterns to treatment or interventions, thus informing individualized care.

PurposeThe Swedish National Diabetes Register (NDR) has developed a diabetes-specific questionnaire to collect information on individuals' management of their diabetes, collaboration with healthcare providers and the disease’s impact on daily life. Our main objective was to develop measures of well-being, abilities to manage diabetes and judgements of diabetes care, and to detect and quantify differences using the NDR questionnaire.Design, setting and participantsThe questionnaire was analysed with using responses from 3689 participants with type 1 and 2 diabetes, randomly sampled from the NDR population, combined with register data on patient characteristics and cardiovascular and diabetes complication risk factors.MethodsWe used item response theory to develop scales for measuring well-being, abilities to manage diabetes and judgements of diabetes care (scores). Test–retest reliability on the scale level was analysed with intraclass correlation. Associations between scores and risk factor levels were investigated with subgroup analyses and correlations.ResultsWe obtained scales with satisfactory measurement properties, covering patient reported outcome measures such as general well-being and being free of worries, and patient reported experience measure, for example, access and continuity in diabetes care. All scales had acceptable test–retest reliability and could detect differences between diabetes types, age, gender and treatment subgroups. In several aspects, for example, freedom of worries, type 1 patients report lower than type 2, and younger patients lower than older. Associations were found between some scores and glycated haemoglobin, but none with systolic blood pressure or low-density lipoprotein cholesterol. Clinicians report positive experience of using scores, visually presented, in the patient dialogue.ConclusionsThe questionnaire measures and detects differences in patient well-being, abilities and judgements of diabetes care, and identifies areas for improvement. To further improve diabetes care, we conclude that patient-reported measures are important supplements to cardiovascular and diabetes complication risk factors, reflecting patient experiences of living with diabetes and diabetes care.

Background Health-related quality of life and glycaemic control are some of the central outcomes in clinical diabetes care and research. The purpose of this study was to describe the health-related quality of life and assess its association with glycaemic control in adults with type 1 and type 2 diabetes in a nationwide setting. Methods In this cross-sectional survey, people with type 1 ( n = 2479) and type 2 diabetes ( n = 2469) were selected at random without replacement from the Swedish National Diabetes Register. Eligibility criteria were being aged 18–80 years with at least one registered test of glycated haemoglobin (HbA 1c ) the last 12 months. The generic 36-item Short Form version 2 (SF-36v2) was answered by 1373 (55.4%) people with type 1 diabetes and 1353 (54.8%) with type 2 diabetes. Results Correlation analyses showed weak correlations between scores on the SF-36v2 and glycaemic control for both diabetes types. After the participants were divided into three groups based on their levels of HbA 1c , multivariate regression analyses adjusted for demographics, other risk factors and diabetes complications showed that among participants with type 1 diabetes, the high-risk group (≥70 mmol/mol/8.6%) had statistically significantly lower means in five out of eight domains of the SF-36v2 and the mental component summary measure, as compared with the well-controlled group (< 52 mmol/mol/6.9%). Among the participants with type 2 diabetes, the high-risk group had the lowest statistically significantly means in seven domains and both summary measures. Conclusions Among people with type 1 and type 2 diabetes, adults with high-risk HbA 1c levels have lower levels of health-related quality of life in most but not all domains of the SF-36v2. This finding was not explained by demographics, other risk factors, or diabetes complications. The weak individual-level correlations between HRQOL scores and levels of glycaemic control argues for the need to not focus exclusively on either HbA 1c levels or HRQOL scores but rather on both because both are important parts of a complex, life-long, challenging condition. Electronic supplementary material The online version of this article (10.1186/s12955-019-1212-z) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.

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