Development of diagnostic reference frames for seizures. Part 2: are seizure descriptions discriminative?
OBJECTIVE
To determine whether the seizure descriptions given by a group of neurologists/epileptologists are discriminative.


METHODS
We constructed templates for various seizure types describing how often symptoms were selected by the participants. We defined a matching score to indicate the match between such a template and the symptoms selected by each neurologist/epileptologist individually and computed the scores for each of the sets of selected symptoms with all templates. Correlation coefficients were calculated between the templates.


RESULTS
Data were collected from 24 participants. The matching scores and the correlation coefficients both show that participants provide discriminative descriptions of the seizure types. Descriptions of aggregated seizure types, such as primary generalized seizures, are less discriminatory than the descriptions of more specific seizure types.


CONCLUSIONS
We concluded that the participants in our study selected symptoms that result in discriminative descriptions of the seizure types. This indicates that knowledge elicitation by using the opinions of a group of clinical experts is possible. The study also indicates that the design of the study could be ameliorated in several ways. These findings will be taken into account when designing the final study.
van Ast
J F
JF
Department of Medical Informatics, University of Maastricht, P.O. Box 616, 6200 MD Maastricht, Netherlands. w.vanast@mi.unimaas.nl
Talmon
J L
JL
Renier
W O
WO
Meinardi
H
H
Ahles
P P M
PP
Hasman
A
A
D003658:Decision Making, Computer-Assisted; D003937:Diagnosis, Differential; D004569:Electroencephalography; D006801:Humans; D016347:Medical Records Systems, Computerized; D009462:Neurology / Q000592:standards; D015588:Observer Variation; D015203:Reproducibility of Results; D012640:Seizures / Q000145:classification* / Q000473:pathology