Skip to main content
Journal cover image

Development of a keyword library for capturing PRO-CTCAE-focused "symptom talk" in oncology conversations.

Publication ,  Journal Article
Durieux, BN; Zverev, SR; Tarbi, EC; Kwok, A; Sciacca, K; Pollak, KI; Tulsky, JA; Lindvall, C
Published in: JAMIA Open
April 2023

OBJECTIVES: As computational methods for detecting symptoms can help us better attend to patient suffering, the objectives of this study were to develop and evaluate the performance of a natural language processing keyword library for detecting symptom talk, and to describe symptom communication within our dataset to generate insights for future model building. MATERIALS AND METHODS: This was a secondary analysis of 121 transcribed outpatient oncology conversations from the Communication in Oncologist-Patient Encounters trial. Through an iterative process of identifying symptom expressions via inductive and deductive techniques, we generated a library of keywords relevant to the Patient-Reported Outcome version of the Common Terminology Criteria for Adverse Events (PRO-CTCAE) framework from 90 conversations, and tested the library on 31 additional transcripts. To contextualize symptom expressions and the nature of misclassifications, we qualitatively analyzed 450 mislabeled and properly labeled symptom-positive turns. RESULTS: The final library, comprising 1320 terms, identified symptom talk among conversation turns with an F1 of 0.82 against a PRO-CTCAE-focused gold standard, and an F1 of 0.61 against a broad gold standard. Qualitative observations suggest that physical symptoms are more easily detected than psychological symptoms (eg, anxiety), and ambiguity persists throughout symptom communication. DISCUSSION: This rudimentary keyword library captures most PRO-CTCAE-focused symptom talk, but the ambiguity of symptom speech limits the utility of rule-based methods alone, and limits to generalizability must be considered. CONCLUSION: Our findings highlight opportunities for more advanced computational models to detect symptom expressions from transcribed clinical conversations. Future improvements in speech-to-text could enable real-time detection at scale.

Duke Scholars

Altmetric Attention Stats
Dimensions Citation Stats

Published In

JAMIA Open

DOI

EISSN

2574-2531

Publication Date

April 2023

Volume

6

Issue

1

Start / End Page

ooad009

Location

United States

Related Subject Headings

  • 4203 Health services and systems
 

Citation

APA
Chicago
ICMJE
MLA
NLM
Durieux, B. N., Zverev, S. R., Tarbi, E. C., Kwok, A., Sciacca, K., Pollak, K. I., … Lindvall, C. (2023). Development of a keyword library for capturing PRO-CTCAE-focused "symptom talk" in oncology conversations. JAMIA Open, 6(1), ooad009. https://doi.org/10.1093/jamiaopen/ooad009
Durieux, Brigitte N., Samuel R. Zverev, Elise C. Tarbi, Anne Kwok, Kate Sciacca, Kathryn I. Pollak, James A. Tulsky, and Charlotta Lindvall. “Development of a keyword library for capturing PRO-CTCAE-focused "symptom talk" in oncology conversations.JAMIA Open 6, no. 1 (April 2023): ooad009. https://doi.org/10.1093/jamiaopen/ooad009.
Durieux BN, Zverev SR, Tarbi EC, Kwok A, Sciacca K, Pollak KI, et al. Development of a keyword library for capturing PRO-CTCAE-focused "symptom talk" in oncology conversations. JAMIA Open. 2023 Apr;6(1):ooad009.
Durieux, Brigitte N., et al. “Development of a keyword library for capturing PRO-CTCAE-focused "symptom talk" in oncology conversations.JAMIA Open, vol. 6, no. 1, Apr. 2023, p. ooad009. Pubmed, doi:10.1093/jamiaopen/ooad009.
Durieux BN, Zverev SR, Tarbi EC, Kwok A, Sciacca K, Pollak KI, Tulsky JA, Lindvall C. Development of a keyword library for capturing PRO-CTCAE-focused "symptom talk" in oncology conversations. JAMIA Open. 2023 Apr;6(1):ooad009.
Journal cover image

Published In

JAMIA Open

DOI

EISSN

2574-2531

Publication Date

April 2023

Volume

6

Issue

1

Start / End Page

ooad009

Location

United States

Related Subject Headings

  • 4203 Health services and systems