Data Contained in Electronic Health Records May Help Identify Short-Term Suicide Risk

Combining patient responses to the Patient Health Questionnaire (PHQ-9) with clinical information available on electronic health records (EHRs) may someday help clinicians better predict which patients are most likely to attempt suicide, reports astudy published inAJP in Advance.Multiple studies have shown that health data can be helpful in identifying at-risk patients, but most patients do not show any obvious warning signs. Gregory Simon, M.D., M.P.H., of Kaiser Permanente and colleagues tested whether a comprehensive EHR analysis that includes data from the PHQ-9 —a simple but effective depression screening tool—might improve prediction accuracy.Simon and colleagues collected data from nearly 3 million patients aged 13 and older who had a specialty mental health visit or primary care visit and was diagnosed with a mental health disorder between January 1, 2009, and June 30, 2015. The patients were enrolled in one of seven large health systems: HealthPartners in Minnesota and Wisconsin; the Henry Ford Health System in Detroit; and the Colorado, Hawaii, Northwest, Southern California, and Washington regions of Kaiser Permanente. Within this group, the study authors identified 24,133 suicide attempts and 1,240 suicide deaths within 90 days of a primary care or specialty mental health visit.The authors then stratified the patients by suicide risk using 313 demographic and clinical characteristics —including age, race, income, substance use, psychiatric medications dispen...
Source: Psychiatr News - Category: Psychiatry Tags: ajp in advance EHRs electronic health records Gregory Simon Patient Health Questionnaire PHQ-9 substance use suicide suicide attempts Source Type: research