title: Case-note abstraction: a methodological substudy as cautionary tale.
abstract: A sample of 42 case notes of alcoholic patients were abstracted for 17 items by three different raters. Interrater agreement was generally rather low. Research based on case-note abstraction which does not report on abstraction reliabilities must therefore be viewed with some suspicion. It would be helpful if clinical material could more often be collected in a standardized manner.
mesh_terms: D000043:Abstracting and Indexing; D000428:Alcohol Drinking; D000430:Alcohol Withdrawal Delirium / Q000175:diagnosis; D000437:Alcoholism / Q000150:complications / Q000175:diagnosis*; D001291:Attitude of Health Personnel; D003863:Depression / Q000175:diagnosis; D005190:Family; D006753:Hospital Records; D006801:Humans; D008499:Medical Records; D011570:Psychiatry; D012107:Research Design