These educational materials have been designed to be used jointly by healthcare professionals and patients during consultations that address the topic of stroke prevention in patients with atrial fibrillation (AF) who have sustained an intracerebral haemorrhage (ICH) or other major bleeding event.
The aim is to facilitate shared decision-making between healthcare professionals and patients and to promote patient understanding of their future stroke and bleeding risk.
Read about and download all the materials below, or download them all collated as one pdf.
This can be used to facilitate shared decision-making during clinical consultations and to help patients and clinicians identify relevant risk factors.
Use these calculators with your patients to discuss their risk levels. You can download pdf versions of them below to print, or electronic calculator versions can be found at www.chadsvasc.org.
The sheet below can be used as a checklist of items to discuss as appropriate with your patient.
The risk of anticoagulation-related bleeding can be scary, and may put patients off of taking anticoagulants.
This guide is designed to explain to patients what the risks are, what they can do to manage their risk, and what to do in case of bleeding.
Atrial Fibrillation Association
For information on atrial fibrillation and oral anticoagulants
www.arrhythmiaalliance.org.uk
Helpline: 01789 867502
AFibMatters from the European Society of Cardiology
For information in multiple languages
www.afibmatters.org
British Heart Foundation
For information on stroke and atrial fibrillation
www.bhf.org.uk
Helpline: 0300 330 3311
Stroke Association
For information on stroke and different stroke sub-types
www.stroke.org.uk
Helpline: 0303 3033 100
Stroke Alliance for Europe
For stroke organisations outside of the UK
www.safestroke.eu
StopAFib
An American-based website with helpful video content; be aware that there may be differences in terminology and clinical practice
www.stopafib.org
European Society of Cardiology
For the latest guidelines on atrial fibrillation and other cariological conditions; also provides links to cardiology societies in different European countries
www.escardio.org
www.escardio.org/The-ESC/Member-National-Cardiac-Societies
Below are links to videos of patient stories. A patient’s personal circumstances and clinical history may be different from the people in these videos, but we hope that they may find them useful.
Health Talk
A series of videos that describe individuals’ experience of taking oral anticoagulants (both warfarin and NOAC) to prevent atrial fibrillation-related stroke
Atrial fibrillation – Atrial fibrillation, stroke risk and blood thinning medication (healthtalk.org)
Heart Matters
A comprehensive source information with videos and text about oral anticoagulants, produced by the British Heart Foundation
Novel anticoagulants – how they work – side effects – BHF