Open jiawei-qian opened 7 months ago
Thanks @jiawei-qian ! I think this is more of a CDM documentation issue so I am going to transfer it there.
I am still thinking about how to document this one. I am going to move it to the needs more work column
How to store the reason of drug discontinuation in DRUG_EXPOSURE.stop_reason field
CDM or THEMIS convention?
THEMIS
Table or Field level?
Field
Is this a general convention?
No
Summary of issues
In OHDSI Forum, someone want to store drug discontinuation reason in CDM v6.0 but found the DRUG_EXPOSURE.stop_reason is deprecated. Then how to store the stop reason now?
How to store the "drug suspension due to unknown reason" and "drug suspension due to adverse effect" in DRUG_EXPOSURE.stop_reason field?
Summary of answer
Now the active version is v5.4. Can use the stop_reason field in DRUG_EXPOSURE table.
For "drug suspension due to unknown reason" situation: need to fix the drug_exposure_end_date. If there is no reason, don't populate stop_reason field (rather than saying "no reason"). For "drug suspension due to adverse effect" situation: Christian says it's better not to store adverse effect reason into stop_reason field. Because the idea of the OMOP CDM and the expectation of the analyst, is to store the medical fact, not some intensions of some doctors.
For example, the patient stopped mesalazine due to nausea. Although there is a reason given here, but its value is low: Whether or not the nausea is due to the drug or something else - neither the patient nor the doctor knows. It’s a guess. At the end of the day it is not possible to know if something is an adverse effect. Only statistics of a population can tell us if there is a risk. Which means, it is the outcome of the research, not the input.
Bottom line: Write Nausea into CONDITION_OCCURRENCE at the date the drug was stopped and be done with it. Feel free to add it as a stop reason, but probably nobody will ever pick it up for research.
Related links
OHDSI Forum: https://forums.ohdsi.org/t/alternative-to-v6-0-deprecation-of-cdm-drug-exposure-stop-reason-column/20905
Other comments/notes
Although Chtistian suggests not to store "adverse effect" reason into stop_reason field, he also says feel free to add it as a stop reason but probably nobody will ever pick it up for reasearch. In my opinion, some people/institutions may want to store stop reason for their own use. Thus, if we create THEMIS convension, I think we can say: although it is not suggested to store adverse effect into stop_reason field, it also depends on their own decision whether want to store adverse effect into stop_reason field.
A good idea is also to store the stop reason: adverse effect (e.g. Nausea) into the CONDITION_OCCURRENCE table.