Background: Outpatients seek to visit health care facilities for episodes of tachycardia-related signs and symptoms. The challenge for physicians is to balance a proper initial assessment and avoid overlooking a possible arrhythmia. This common situation affects individuals and health care utilization, and effective management may substantially affect health care resources. This study aimed to explore health care utilization for outpatients with episodes of tachycardia visiting health care centres (HCCs) and/or emergency departments (EDs).

Method: This retrospective study used data of adult outpatients (18 years or older) who were assessed by a physiscian as having a specific or nonspecific diagnosis of arrhythmia between 2017 and 2018, and data wrer retrieved from medical records and a regional data registry database. Data were analysed with appropriate statistical analyses to identify disparities between sex, age and terms of search pattern for each health care facility. Analysis of variance was used to test disparities between the sexes, and one-factor ANOVA was used for the incidence of missed arrhythmias.

Results: A total of 2719 visits with 2373 outpatients were included in the study. The result showed a significant difference in the total number of visits (n=2719) between female and male patients (68% vs. 32%, p= .001). In the 60-69- and 70-79-year age groups, females had significantly higher frequencies of visits than males (p= .018). A significant difference was also observed between sexes in terms of which health care facility they tended to visit (p= .001). Ninety-five % of the outpatients visiting EDs were hospitalized. When estimating the incidence of missed arrhythmias (diagnoses) in relation to assessments, the results showed a 5% missed diagnosis involving potential atrioventricular nodal re-entry tachycardia and atrioventricular re-entry tachycardia. Moreover, the referral rate was low, especially from HCCs to cardiologists.

Conclusion: This study shows a significant difference in total visits in HCCs and/or EDs by patients of different sexes and indicates the need of improved care for outpatients with episodes of tachycardia. Sex- and age-related differences must be addressed with an aim of providing equal care. Finally, the low rate of referral from HCCs to cardiologists compared to the high proportion of hospitalizations from EDs, deserves further investigation.

Purpose: To address the consequences of living with supraventricular tachycardia and to improve the quality of treatment, there is a need to highlight patient experiences of treatment with catheter ablation. Therefore, the aim was to describe the phenomenon of catheter ablation, as it is experienced by patients being treated awake. Methods: A descriptive design was applied based on a reflective lifeworld research founded on phenomenological epistemology. Interviews were conducted between December 2021 and Mars 2022 with seven women and five men, three to twelve months after they underwent catheter ablation. Results: Patients undergoing catheter ablation while awake during treatment, which includes experiences of relying on others expertise, being actively passive, and striving to be cured. It entails experiences of having a foreign object moving in one’s body and heart and can be endured through strategies of mainly shifted one’s mental focus. Conclusions: The effort of undergoing a catheter ablation procedure is worthwhile as the confirmation of a physical curable condition that opens a future with possibilities instead of the obstacle in daily life that tachycardia entails. For the patients, an informative and caring conversation was needed that would have provided the support they lacked before and during the ablation.