Nurse-led care after ablation of atrial fibrillation: a randomized controlled trial

The present study investigates the added value of advanced practitioner nurse (APN)-led care consisting of an educational session, three consultations spread over 6 months and telephone accessibility coordinated by the APN in patients after ablation of atrial fibrillation (AF).Main findings are The addition of nurse-led care after ablation of AF improves short-term clinical outcome, patient satisfaction and physical activity and decreases alcohol intake.Our study shows that integrating nurse-led care in the post-AF ablation setting is a relatively simple to implement, low-cost intervention with a major impact on patient outcomes and quality of care. These findings encourage including nurse-led care into routine AF ablation follow-up.Graphical AbstractAF, atrial fibrillation; AFL, atrial flutter; AT, atrial tachycardia; PVI, pulmonary vein isolation; APN, advances practitioner nurse; alcohol intake: units per week; physical exercise: minutes per week; patient satisfaction and AF knowledge scale: score out of 10. Numbers rounded to decimals. Red bar = intervention group, n= 32; blue bar = usual care group, n= 33.