Documenting cannabis use in primary care: a descriptive cross-sectional study using electronic medical record data in Alberta, Canada.

ABSTRACT:

Objective

Documenting cannabis use is important for patient care, but no formal requirements for consistent reporting exist in primary care. The objective of this study was to understand how cannabis use is documented in primary care electronic medical record (EMR) data.

Results

This was a cross-sectional study using de-identified EMR data from over 398,000 patients and 333 primary care providers in Alberta, Canada. An automated pattern-matching algorithm was developed to identify text and ICD-9 diagnostic codes indicating cannabis use in the EMR. There was a total of 11,724 records indicating cannabis use from 4652 patients, representing approximately 1.2% of the patient sample. Commonly used terms and ICD-9 codes included cannabis, marijuana/marihuana, THC, 304.3 and 305.2

SUBMITTER: Soos B 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC9890680 | biostudies-literature | 2023 Feb

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature