Limitations
There are various limitations of our study that should be noticed. One is no follow-up data to evaluate outcomes. Possible selection bias is evident because of different healthcare settings in the participating countries. Moreover, information about patient/prescriber treatment preferences is lacking. Also, data from the registry are limited to the Balkan population, but this is the largest AF dataset from this region. Moreover, physicians knew that their recommendations on diagnostic assessment and management would be recorded. Registries are likely to attract selected highly motivated patients and their treatment at enrolment may reflect higher compliance. However, due to enrolment of consecutive patients, the probability for a physician to enrol mainly patients with increased compliance is limited. Access to the AF catheter ablation and surgical AF ablation might have been limited in the Balkan region what reflected the small proportion of patients managed with those methods.