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.