Accuracy of owner-reported diagnoses for dogs enrolled in the Dog Aging Project as compared to veterinary electronic medical records.

Agreement between owner-reported and VEMR-verified diagnoses was at or above 90% in 10 of 20 disease categories.

• A final sample of 309 dogs was included after excluding 41 dogs due to incomplete VEMRs from an initial subsample of 350.
• Agreement was assessed across 20 disease categories with a focus on five target disease categories (TDCs).
• Agreement was highest in endocrine, immune, and 'other' categories at 99%.
• Agreement was lowest in the dental/oral category at 44%.

Among the five target disease categories, orthopedic and traumatic conditions had higher owner-VEMR agreement while dermatologic and dental/oral categories showed the least agreement.

• Orthopedic and traumatic conditions had agreement greater than 78%.
• Dermatologic and dental/oral categories showed the least agreement among the five target disease categories.
• The five target disease categories (TDCs) were a focus of particular analysis within the broader 20-category assessment.
• The study hypothesized that owner-reported diagnoses would align more closely with VEMRs for acute or emergent conditions and less so for benign or self-limiting conditions.

The study enrolled dogs with veterinary electronic medical records covering at least 85% of their life up to the time of survey completion.

• Dogs were selected from the 2020 curated Dog Aging Project dataset (n = 27,541).
• A subsample of 350 dogs was selected, of which 41 were excluded due to incomplete VEMRs.
• VEMR reviewers completed a survey mirroring the Health and Life Experience Survey (HLES) and identified supporting evidence for each diagnosis.
• Reviewers were masked when abstracting VEMR data.

Owner-reported diagnoses from the Health and Life Experience Survey showed substantial concordance with veterinary electronic medical records across many disease categories.

• Agreement was at or above 90% in 10 of 20 disease categories.
• The study used data from the Dog Aging Project, a longitudinal study of companion dogs in the United States.
• The findings support owner-reported diagnoses as 'a reliable and scalable supplement or alternative to VEMRs in veterinary research and epidemiology.'
• The observational study compared owner responses in the HLES to VEMR data abstracted by masked reviewers.