Using Classification and Regression Trees (CART) to Identify Prescribing Thresholds for Cardiovascular Disease

Abstract

Background and Objective: Many guidelines for clinical decisions are hierarchical and nonlinear. Evaluating if these guidelines are used in practice requires methods that can identify such structures and thresholds. Classification and regression trees (CART) were used to analyse prescribing patterns of Australian general practitioners (GPs) for the primary prevention of cardiovascular disease (CVD). Our aim was to identify if GPs use absolute risk (AR) guidelines in favour of individual risk factors to inform their prescribing decisions of lipid-lowering medications. Methods: We employed administrative prescribing information that is linked to patient-level data from a clinical assessment an..