Atrial Fibrillation Status and Associations with Adverse Clinical Outcomes in COVID-19 Patients

academic.oup.com January 6, 2025

COVID-19 patients with atrial fibrillation (AF) are at high risk of adverse clinical outcomes. Such patients may need increased surveillance and consideration for early anticoagulation.

Patients admitted with COVID-19 (1-January-2020 to 30-September-2021) were identified from the New South Wales Admitted-Patient-Data-Collection database, stratified by AF status (no-AF vs prior-AF or new-AF during index COVID-19 admission) and followed-up until 31-Mar-2022.

Multivariable Cox regression and competing risk analyses were performed to assess the impact of AF on MACE and non-fatal outcomes respectively.

Our cohort comprised 145,293 COVID-19 patients (median age 67.4yo; 49.7% males): new-AF, n=5140 (3.5%); prior-AF, n=23204 (16.0%).