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Updated: Jun 19, 2025
Catheter Ablation in Combination With Left Atrial Appendage Closure for Atrial Fibrillation
Published on: February 26, 2013
Clinical practices for defining, detecting, and diagnosing postoperative atrial fibrillation after coronary
Megan Higgs1, Julee McDonagh2, Jenny Sim3
1Southeastern Sydney Local Health District, New South Wales, Australia.
Objectives:
This scoping review was undertaken to understand the degree of variation in clinical practices associated with postoperative atrial fibrillation (POAF), following coronary revascularization surgery by collating and synthesising key concepts from current published literature.
Review Methods And Data Sources:
This scoping review was conducted following the framework outlined by Askey and O'Malley. Reporting of this scoping review follows the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses extension for Scoping Reviews checklist. Initial searches were completed in September 2020 and updated in January 2023. Comprehensive searches to identify relevant published literature were carried out within CINAHL, MEDLINE, and ProQuest databases. All searches were limited to full-text papers published in English with human adult participants. Deductive content analysis using NVivo software was performed to synthesise the data.
Results:
A total of 692 studies were identified during the database searches. After the deletion of duplicates and the application of the inclusion and exclusion criteria, 73 studies were included in the scoping review. The included studies were published between 2001 and 2022 and included a total of 24,833 participants. Forty-six studies included a definition of POAF, with four of these citing a peak-body definition. A total of 24 included studies reported on electrocardiogram diagnostic criteria for POAF, with 13/24 [54%] describing these characteristics within their definition. The time-based diagnostic criteria ranged from a minimum duration of greater than 30 seconds to greater than 1 hour. The most frequently reported minimum-time thresholds were ≥30 seconds, reported in 12 of 51 (24%) studies and ≥5 min, reported in 13 of 51 (25%) studies.
Conclusions:
There is a lack of consistency in clinical practice for defining, detecting, and diagnosing POAF, following coronary revascularization surgery. Consensus and standardisation of clinical practices are urgently needed.
