Observational Analysis

An observational analysis was conducted to observe the effectiveness of warfarin in patients with atrial fibrillation after the patients had ischemic strokes. In the article “Real World Effectiveness of Warfarin Among Ischemic Stroke Patients with Atrial Fibrillation,” 12,552 patients were observed for one year after being admitted to the hospital for acute ischemic stroke and discharged with a diagnosis of persistent or paroxysmal atrial fibrillation. These observations were made between January 2009 and December 2011. The patients were divided into two separate groups for comparison during the study: patients taking warfarin and patients not treated with any anticoagulants. Patients that were unable to take anticoagulants were excluded
from the study.
The study participants were given surveys to determine the outcomes. Warfarin was given to 87.9% of the patients upon their discharge from the hospital. By performing an age analysis and comparison of the patients involved in the study, it was discovered that the younger patients were given warfarin and were less likely to have a history of previous stroke or coronary artery disease. Both groups, those given warfarin and those not receiving it, had “similar stroke severity as measured by the NIHSS” (Xian et al., 2015). Both groups also had findings of major adverse cardiovascular events (MACE), but the patients on warfarin had a lower risk than those not taking anticoagulants. In conclusion, the atrial fibrillation patients taking warfarin after a stroke had an improvement in outcome than patients not on anticoagulants.