In 1998, invasive electrophysiological activities were started at Linköping University Hospital. There was a clear need for an instrument, which could measure both the symptomburden and the impact on quality of life. What was missing was an instrument to measure said things just linked to arrhythmia; what we call disease-specific.
The work began with interviews of patients with different diagnoses before catheter ablation. Tests with a translated questionnaire (Symptoms Checklist) were less positive and a long-term effort to create an arrhythmia-specific questionnaire began. The work resulted in an academic thesis defended by Ulla Walfridsson, research nurse, cardiology clinic, University Hospital in Linköping in 2011. “Assessing Symptom Burden and Health-Related Quality of Life in patients living with arrhythmia and ASTA Arrhythmia-Specific questionnaire in Tachycardia and Arrhythmia. Linköping University Faculty of Health Sciences. No:1279.
The validation of the ASTA form was published in two articles in 2012 and 2014. (See publication list).
In the autumn of 2019, an article was published in Pacing and Clinical Electrophysiology – PACE” with the world’s single largest material where 2493 patients were examined prior to ablation of atrial fibrillation. Gender and age differences in symptoms and Health-Related Quality of Life in a large Scandinavian cohort of patients with atrial fibrillation referred for catheter ablation, evaluated by “The Arrhythmia-Specific questionnaire in Tachycardia and Arrhythmia” ( ASTA) Walfridsson U, Steen Hansen P, Charitakis E, Almroth H, Jönsson A, Karlsson LO, Liuba I, Samo Ayou R, Poci D, Holmqvist F, Kongstad O, Walfridsson H . PACE 2019 http://media.walraf.se/2020/02/Walfridsson-et-al-Gender-and-Age-2019.pdf
In 2019, a patient material of 203 patients with various forms of tachycardia has used the ASTA form in its English version as part of the validation of this version. The investigation was conducted at the Royal Adelaide Hospital, South Australia, Australia. Published 2022 (please see “publications”).
Work is ongoing with an analysis of about 2000 patients who are examined 12 months after catheter ablation of atrial fibrillation and we have during 2022 published a smaller group of patients, who were studied 5 years after catheter ablation of atrial fibrillation. (please see “publication”).
The number of language-versions are now 16 apart from the original Swedish version.