This is a protocol for a Cochrane Review (Intervention). The objectives are as follows:

To characterize the relative effect of long‐term oral anticoagulant treatment versus antiplatelet therapy on major vascular events in patients with non‐valvular AF and no history of stroke or TIA. Our main hypotheses are:
(1) oral anticoagulant treatment compared to antiplatelet therapy will reduce ischemic events: ischemic strokes, myocardial infarction, systemic emboli, and vascular death (with a smaller decrease in all‐cause death);
(2) oral anticoagulant treatment compared to antiplatelet therapy will increase bleeding events: intracranial hemorrhage and major extracranial hemorrhage;
(3) oral anticoagulant treatment compared to antiplatelet therapy will decrease clinically relevant combinations of ischemic plus bleeding events: all stroke (ischemic and hemorrhagic), disabling or fatal stroke (ischemic and hemorrhagic), and the composite of all stroke, myocardial infarction or vascular death.