To make a survey of the knowledge of rural community physicians on atrial fibrillation (AF) and antithrombotic therapy.

A questionnaire survey was conducted in 128 community physicians from seven rural community health service centers in Songjiang District, Shanghai in 2015. The knowledge of community physicians on AF, antithrombotic therapy for AF, and their continuing medical education status were investigated.

Of all community physicians enrolled, 87.5% (112/128) answered correctly that AF was an arrhythmia, 7.8% (10/128) did not understand the electrocardiographic characteristics of AF, 82.8% (106/128) chose stroke as the most common complication of AF, and 4.7% (6/128) failed to describe the typical signs of AF; 67.2% (86/128) believed that antithrombotic therapy was essential for most AF patients; 43.8% (56/128) preferred aspirin, 52.5% (67/128) preferred warfarin, and 3.9% (5/128) preferred clopidogrel as the first-line antithrombotic drug for most AF patients; 12.5% (16/128) could understand and skillfully use the risk stratification of stroke in AF patients, and 7.8% (10/128) could well understand and correctly assess the bleeding risk of anticoagulation. In the past 3 years, 42.2% (54/128) of rural community physicians did not receive continuing medical education related to AF, 50.0% (64/128) paid no attention to AF guideline update, 65.6% (84/128) had not read AF guidelines, and 32.0% (41/128) did not receive any continuing medical education on cardiovascular disease.

There is a serious lack of knowledge on the anticoagulant therapy for AF among rural community physicians, and their continuing medical education related to AF is insufficient.