Quality of life and symptom experience measurement tools in adults with atrial fibrillation: a scoping review protocol

Objective: The objective of this scoping review is to identify and map measurement tools for evaluating disease-specific quality of life and symptoms in adults with atrial fibrillation. The review will also identify key concepts that differentiate quality of life from symptom experience. Introduction: Quality of life is a broad concept influenced by physical health, psychological state, degree of independence, and social/functional status. Symptoms of a chronic disease may influence quality of life through their effect on an individual's perception of physical health. Symptom experience is distinct from quality of life; however, the distinction is ill-defined, resulting in conceptual overlap in the measurement tools used to assess these concepts in patients with atrial fibrillation. Inclusion criteria: Included manuscripts will describe a scale, index, questionnaire, checklist, or other form of measurement tool designed to assess quality of life or symptom experience in adults with atrial fibrillation or supraventricular arrhythmia. Peer-reviewed research manuscripts and systematic reviews, gray literature, and conceptual/theoretical papers will be included. Methods: The review will follow the JBI methodology for scoping reviews. MEDLINE, CINAHL, PsycINFO, the Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews, and Embase will be searched, as well as Google Scholar, MedNar, and OpenGrey. Articles will be considered if they are published in English, Danish, Swedish, or Norwegian, with no date limitation. The title and abstract of each article will be independently screened by two authors, followed by full-text review of remaining articles, according to the inclusion criteria. Data will be independently extracted by two authors using a data extraction tool.