Medically unexplained syndromes (MUS) are conditions that are diagnosed on the basis of symptom constellations and are characterized by a lack of well-defined pathogenic pathways. The three most common MUS are chronic fatigue syndrome, irritable bowel syndrome, and fibromyalgia. Different types of persistent symptoms, originating from different organ systems, characterize these syndromes. Patients often meet the criteria for more than one MUS.
Objectives
We sought to develop a guideline and annotation schema that can be consistently applied to identify MUS found in VA clinical documents. These efforts will support building a reference standard used for training and evaluation of a Natural Language Processing system developed for automated symptom extraction. Our overarching goal is to characterize the occurrence of MUS in Operation Enduring Freedom/Operation Iraqi Freedom veterans.