Can Medical Records Predict When an Alcohol Use Disorder Will Be Diagnosed?
A first diagnosis in an electronic record tells you when the condition was documented. The underlying symptoms may have started earlier.
What the study predicted
Researchers tested whether information already recorded in medical charts predicted a later recorded alcohol use disorder diagnosis. They analyzed potentially relevant diagnoses, prescriptions, sick leave and laboratory markers as information that could change over time. Some variables, including elevated gamma-glutamyl transferase and mean corpuscular volume, were associated with a later diagnosis. The authors concluded that they had been unable to establish a clinically useful tool from the observed associations.
Why the date matters in a case
A recorded diagnosis may follow an earlier period of symptoms or exposure, and medical records vary in how often patients are seen or asked about drinking. A chart marker can help identify what to investigate. It cannot, by itself, date the onset of an alcohol use disorder or establish how much an individual drank.
Source
Electronic patient-record study of later alcohol use disorder diagnoses (full text) · DOI
