Influence of doctors’ perception on the diagnostic status of chronic kidney disease: results from 976 409 individuals with electronic health records in China

Background The diagnostic status of chronic kidney disease (CKD) and its underlying reasons provide evidence that can improve CKD management. However, the situation in developing countries remains under-investigated. Methods Adults with electronic health records (EHRs; 2008–19) in Yinzhou, China were included. The gold standard for CKD was defined as having persistently reduced estimated glomerular filtration rate (eGFR), albuminuria/proteinuria, haematuria or a history of CKD. CKD stages (G1–G5) were defined by eGFR. Clinical diagnosis of CKD in the real world setting was evaluated using International Classification of Diseases (ICD)-10 codes related to primary cause or stages of CKD. The specialty of doctors who administered the serum creatinine (SCr) tests and who made the primary-cause/CKD-staging diagnoses was analysed. The accuracy of CKD-staging codes was assessed. Results Altogether, 85 519 CKD patients were identified from 976 409 individuals with EHRs. Of them, 10 287 (12.0%) having persistent urinary abnormalities or labelled with CKD-related ICD codes did not receive SCr tests within 12 months before or after the urine tests. Among 75 147 patients who received SCr tests, 46 150 (61.4%) missed any CKD-related codes, 6857 (35.7%) were merely labelled with primary-cause codes, and only 2140 (2.9%) were labelled with CKD-staging codes. The majority of CKD patients (51.6–91.1%) received SCr tests from non-nephrologists, whereas CKD-staging diagnoses were mainly from nephrologists (52.3–64.8%). Only 3 of 42 general hospitals had nephrologists. The CKD-staging codes had high specificity (>99.0%) but low sensitivity (G3–G4: