Fewer than a quarter of Australian patients with a hospital diagnosis of AF were dispensed oral anticoagulants in the first month after discharge, say the authors of a large study.

In the analysis of 71,000 people in NSW and Victoria, discharged between 2010 and 2015, with either a primary or secondary diagnosis of AF, just 22.7% initiated oral anticoagulants within 30 days despite guidelines recommending their use.

And of those who did start on the therapy, nearly 40% had come off the drugs within a year of discharge, the authors wrote in the Journal of the American Heart Association.

“We found that oral anticoagulant therapy was severely underutilised in people hospitalised with AF, even among high-risk individuals,” wrote the authors, led by cardiologist Dr Arthur Nasis, of Safer Care Victoria, and Dr Sallie Pearson (PhD), from UNSW Sydney.