Opportunistic screening of irregular pulse to detect asymptomatic atrial fibrillation in community pharmacies: TAKE YOUR PULSE PROJECT

Background: Atrial fibrillation is the most common arrhythmia. It is associated with a high morbidity and mortality. It increases fivefold the probability of suffering an ischemic stroke, which is the most serious and incapacitating one. Its early diagnosis and treatment improve its clinical outcome. Objective: This study aims to describe the proportion of irregular pulses found from community pharmacies in patients over 60 years as an indicator of asymptomatic atrial fibrillation and it also evaluates the suitability of the process in terms of its feasibility and implementation. Methods: It was conducted an observational, descriptive and cross-sectional study. It was based on taking the radial pulse (RP) of asymptomatic patients. For a period of 40 days, healthcare professionals from 240 community pharmacists and 105 health centres attended the training and joined the 'Take your pulse' campaign. Community pharmacies recruited 4,729 subjects, 666 were excluded. Finally, 4,063 subjects over 60 years were screened. It was created an online platform, which was accessed by validating a user code and password, to record the different variables. In addition, the suitability of the process was evaluated through a self-administered survey of participating pharmacists. The suitability of the organisational model was evaluated using a validated self-report questionnaire completed by the participating pharmacists. Results: An irregular pulse was found in 5.9 % of the subjects among whom the percentage of males was statistically significant. The average level of pharmacists satisfaction was 8.07/10. Conclusion: Irregular pulse screening to detect asymptomatic atrial fibrillation in community pharmacies has a high degree of feasibility to be incorporated systematically into groups of susceptible patients. In addition, it incorporates the accessibility of the determination by allowing the screening of large samples in short periods of time. However, some aspects related to sharing management and working in coordination with Primary Care teams become essential to measure reliably its real effectiveness in the diagnostic rate rise of certain prevalent diseases.