UCL Discovery
UCL home » Library Services » Electronic resources » UCL Discovery

Which is more useful in predicting hospital mortality - dichotomised blood test results or actual test values? A retrospective study in two hospitals

Mohammed, MA; Rudge, G; Wood, G; Smith, G; Nangalia, V; Prytherch, D; Holder, R; (2012) Which is more useful in predicting hospital mortality - dichotomised blood test results or actual test values? A retrospective study in two hospitals. PLoS One , 7 (10) , Article e46860. 10.1371/journal.pone.0046860. Green open access

[thumbnail of journal.pone.0046860.pdf]
Preview
PDF
journal.pone.0046860.pdf

Download (547kB)

Abstract

Routine blood tests are an integral part of clinical medicine and in interpreting blood test results clinicians have two broad options. (1) Dichotomise the blood tests into normal/abnormal or (2) use the actual values and overlook the reference values. We refer to these as the "binary" and the "non-binary" strategy respectively. We investigate which strategy is better at predicting the risk of death in hospital based on seven routinely undertaken blood tests (albumin, creatinine, haemoglobin, potassium, sodium, urea, and white blood cell count) using tree models to implement the two strategies.

Type: Article
Title: Which is more useful in predicting hospital mortality - dichotomised blood test results or actual test values? A retrospective study in two hospitals
Location: United States
Open access status: An open access version is available from UCL Discovery
DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0046860
Publisher version: http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0046860
Language: English
Additional information: © Mohammed et al. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited. PMCID: PMC3471950
Keywords: Adult, Aged, Aged, 80 and over, Female, Hematologic Tests, Hospital Mortality, Humans, Male, Middle Aged, Models, Statistical, ROC Curve, Retrospective Studies, Risk Assessment
UCL classification: UCL
UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices
UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Life and Medical Sciences
UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Life and Medical Sciences > Faculty of Medical Sciences
UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Life and Medical Sciences > Faculty of Medical Sciences > Div of Surgery and Interventional Sci
URI: https://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/id/eprint/1395738
Downloads since deposit
114Downloads
Download activity - last month
Download activity - last 12 months
Downloads by country - last 12 months

Archive Staff Only

View Item View Item