Our thanks to SUTP Medical Advisory Board member Dr. Artur Fedorowski for freely sharing this POTS survey with our community. Dr. Fedorowski has done extensive research on the basic physiology of POTS in his laboratory in addition to his work in clinical practice. We hope that this survey will help to better quantify symptom load in POTS patients and lead to better assessment of the effectiveness of treatment regimens.
Malmo POTS Score (MAPS) English version
Malmo POTS Score (MAPS) Swedish version
This survey was first published in:
Spahic, J. M., Hamrefors, V., Johansson, M., Ricci, F., Melander, O., Sutton, R., & Fedorowski, A. (2023). Malmö POTS symptom score: Assessing symptom burden in postural orthostatic tachycardia syndrome. Journal of Internal Medicine, 293(1), 91-99.
Dr. Fedorowski recommends using this survey to assess symptom burden and help to track symptom load as POTS progresses and as medications or dosages are changed to better understand the impact of new treatments on quality of life.
The Malmo POTS Symptom Score (MAPS)
Dear Mr/Mrs/Ms _____________________,
This questionnaire concerns symptoms related to postural orthostatic tachycardia syndrome (POTS). It will help us to evaluate how affected you are by symptoms originating from this syndrome. We kindly ask you to fill in this questionnaire as thoroughly as possible. Please circle the number on following scale that corresponds to your average symptoms for the past week. You should only answer once per question. If you haven’t experienced symptoms described below, circle zero (0).
No symptoms Pronounced symptoms
1. Dizziness in upright position or while standing up
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
2. Dizziness, feeling that you are going to faint
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
3. Palpitations, high pulse, or feeling heart beating irregularly
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
4. Difficult breathing/dyspnoea, both at effort and rest
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
5. Chest pain
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
6. Headache
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
7. Concentration difficulties and/or problems with thinking
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
8. Muscle pain
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
9. Nausea
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
10. Gastrointestinal problems (stomach-ache, diarrhoea, constipation)
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
11. Abnormal tiredness that persists after rest
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
12. Insomnia
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
Skåne University Hospital and Lund University, Malmö, Sweden
Authors: Jasmina Medic Spahic, Viktor Hamrefors, Richard Sutton, and Artur Fedorowski
English version. Date: 20210904
Scores range from 0 to 120. The optimal cutoff to differentiate between POTS patients and healthy controls is ≥42 (Spahic et al. 2023).