A Guideline-Oriented Ontological Decision Support System for Diagnosis and Treatment of Urinary Incontinence (UrInO-DSS): A System Framework

Objective: To design an ontology-based clinical decision support system based on a clinical guideline for urinary incontinence. Materials and Methods: The study will be conducted in four phases: Updating the adapted clinical guideline for urinary incontinence for Iranian clinicians; Developing an ontology based on the adapted guideline; Developing a guideline-oriented ontological decision support system for urinary incontinence; and evaluating both the ontology and the decision support system. The GRADE-Adolopment methodology will be used for updating the adapted guideline. The researcher will deploy Protégé 5.5.0 ontology editor for developing the ontology. The rules will be extracted from the adapted guideline for urinary incontinence, and the rule language will be Semantic Web Rule Language. Ontology consistency will be evaluated with Pellet reasoner. The system will be evaluated and analyzed by the GUIDES checklist. Results: The results of the study will be published and disseminated in peer-reviewed journals. Conclusion: UrInO-DSS will offer a tool to support clinicians in providing personalized treatment for patients who suffer from urinary incontinence. It can also help the residents and medical students to learn how to diagnose and manage urinary incontinence in the best way. The system can be implemented as an international decision support system for the diagnosis and management of urinary incontinence.