BACKGROUND
: Currently, hypertension is one of the diseases with greater risk of mortality in the world. Particularly in Chile, 90% of the population with this disease has idiopathic or essential hypertension. Essential hypertension is characterized by high blood pressure rates and it´s cause is unknown, which means that every patient might requires a different treatment, depending on their history and symptoms. Different data, such as history, symptoms, exams, etc., are generated for each patient suffering from the disease. This data is presented in the patient’s medical record, in no order, making it difficult to search for relevant information. Therefore, there is a need for a common, unified vocabulary of the terms that adequately represent the diseased, making searching within the domain more effective.
OBJECTIVE
The objective of this study is to develop a domain ontology for essential hypertension , therefore arranging the more significant data within the domain as tool for medical training or to support physicians’ decision making will be provided.
METHODS
The terms used for the ontology were extracted from the medical history of de-identified medical records, of patients with essential hypertension. The Snomed-CT’ collection of medical terms, and clinical guidelines to control the disease were also used. Methontology was used for the design, classes definition and their hierarchy, as well as relationships between concepts and instances. Three criteria were used to validate the ontology, which also helped to measure its quality. Tests were run with a dataset to verify that the tool was created according to the requirements.
RESULTS
An ontology of 310 instances classified into 37 classes was developed. From these, 4 super classes and 30 relationships were obtained. In the dataset tests, 100% correct and coherent answers were obtained for quality tests (3).
CONCLUSIONS
The development of this ontology provides a tool for physicians, specialists, and students, among others, that can be incorporated into clinical systems to support decision making regarding essential hypertension. Nevertheless, more instances should be incorporated into the ontology by carrying out further searched in the medical history or free text sections of the medical records of patients with this disease.
