Physicians' perceptions of the benefits and risks of warfarin for patients with nonvalvular atrial fibrillation.
Year: 2001
Type: article
Abstract: Numerous randomized controlled trials (RCTs)have conclusively demonstrated that long-termanticoagulation in patients with nonvalvular atrial fibrillation (NVAF) can reduce the risk of stroke by ap-proximately 68 % per year, with a low annual risk of major hemorrhage (1.3%).1 Despite these impressive results, sev-eral studies have shown that the use of warfarin in the “real world ” for the prevention of ischemic stroke is suboptimal, with only 15%–44 % of patients with atrial fibrillation who had no contraindication to the therapy actually receiving warfarin.2 The reasons for this discrepancy between the RCT evidence and clinical practice patterns are unknown. To test the hypothesis that physicians may underesti-mate the benefits and overestimate the risks of anticoagula-tion therapy, we conducted a survey of all cardiologists (n = 58), neurologists (n = 34) and general internists (n = 130) and a random sample of family physicians
Source: Europe PMC (PubMed Central)
Language: English
Subfield: Cardiology and Cardiovascular Medicine
Field: Medicine
Domain: Health Sciences
Open Access status: green
OpenAlex ID: W2157100917