Health and symptom outcomes
Patients reported high post-ablation quality of life (mean 7.3 [SD 2.0] out of 10) and low symptom burden on the AFSS (Table 3 ). Patients described feeling well post-ablation, but some struggled to quantify changes in cardiac rhythm, symptoms and quality of life without a tool to help them objectively measure: “I even forgot almost how my status was before the ablation. And I feel comfortable now. And when you are okay, you forget when you were not okay.” -Patient 10. One-third of patients reported having AF recurrence post-ablation, which aligns with the estimates clinicians in this study gave of the overall success rate in their practice. Clinicians report that patients begin to reframe their view of ablations if the initial ablation is unsuccessful and a repeat ablation may be needed: “You’re always going to have a handful who have a recurrence, and then they’re upset that they have to possibly have another ablation…Those are the ones who say, ‘Why did I even bother doing this?’ or ‘How many ablations can I get? Is this even okay to have so many ablations?”’ -Clinician 3.