Department of Public Health and Primary Care, KU Leuven, Leuven, Belgium.
Qompium, Hasselt, Belgium.
Trials. 2021 Aug 9;22(1):525. doi: 10.1186/s13063-021-05497-x.
Atrial fibrillation is a cardiac arrhythmia commonly encountered in a primary care setting. Current screening is limited to pulse palpation and ECG confirmation when an irregular pulse is found. Paroxysmal atrial fibrillation will, however, still be difficult to pick up. With the advent of smartphones, screening could be more cost-efficient by making use of simple applications, lowering the need for intensive screening to discover (paroxysmal) atrial fibrillation.
METHODS/DESIGN: This cluster randomized trial will examine the effect of using a smartphone-based application such as FibriCheck® on the detection rate of atrial fibrillation in a Flemish general practice population. This study will be conducted in 22 primary care practices across the Flanders region of Belgium and will last 12 months. Patients above 65 years of age will be divided in control and intervention groups on the practice level. The control group will be subjected to standard opportunistic screening only, while the intervention group will be prescribed the FibriCheck® app on top of this opportunistic screening. The difference in detection rate between control and intervention groups will be calculated at the end of the study. We will use the online platform INTEGO for pseudonymized data collection and analysis, and risk calculation.
Smartphone applications might offer a way to cost-effectively screen for (paroxysmal) atrial fibrillation in a primary care setting. This could open the door for the update of future screening guidelines.
ClinicalTrials.gov NCT04545723 . Registered on September 10, 2020.
心房颤动是基层医疗机构中常见的心律失常。目前的筛查仅限于在发现不规则脉搏时进行脉搏触诊和心电图确认。然而，阵发性心房颤动仍难以发现。随着智能手机的出现，通过使用简单的应用程序进行筛查可以更具成本效益，减少发现（阵发性）心房颤动所需的密集筛查。
方法/设计：这项集群随机试验将研究在弗拉芒一般实践人群中使用基于智能手机的应用程序（如 FibriCheck®）对心房颤动检测率的影响。这项研究将在比利时弗拉芒地区的 22 个基层医疗实践中进行，持续 12 个月。65 岁以上的患者将在实践层面上分为对照组和干预组。对照组仅接受标准机会性筛查，而干预组将在此机会性筛查的基础上开处 FibriCheck®应用程序。研究结束时将计算对照组和干预组之间的检测率差异。我们将使用在线平台 INTEGO 进行匿名数据收集和分析以及风险计算。
智能手机应用程序可能提供了一种在基层医疗环境中经济有效地筛查（阵发性）心房颤动的方法。这可能为更新未来的筛查指南打开大门。
ClinicalTrials.gov NCT04545723。于 2020 年 9 月 10 日注册。
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