Building a concept system to structure the contents of a decision support system - a grounded theory study of concepts in the knowledge domain of urinary tract infection

In this study we present a concept system for the knowledge domain of urina ry tract infections. The system was constructed using grounded theory metho ds, sampling from Swedish reference texts and patient records from consulta tions for urinary tract infections. The concept system is intended for use as an aid in the construction of a decision support system (DSS) for urinar y tract infections, and as a search module in the mentioned DSS. In total 5 61 concepts were categorized in four major, and 58 subordinate categories. Relationships between the more important categories were developed, and the frequency of use of the most common concepts is presented. Using the prese nted categorical structure as domain model a prototype DSS for dipslide uri ne cultures has been developed.