Peer-reviewed veterinary case report
How accurate are dog owner health reports compared to vet records
By Sarah M. Schmid et al.·Published in PLoS ONE·2026·View original on Semantic Scholar →
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Original publication title: Accuracy of owner-reported diagnoses for dogs enrolled in the Dog Aging Project as compared to veterinary electronic medical records.
- Species:
- dog
Plain-English summary
A study looked at how well dog owners can report their pets' health issues compared to what veterinarians have in their records. They found that for many conditions, like hormonal or immune problems, owners were very accurate, with agreement rates over 90%. However, when it came to dental issues, the accuracy dropped significantly, with only 44% agreement. This suggests that while owners can provide useful information about their dogs' health, there are some areas, like dental health, where they might not be as reliable. Overall, owner-reported health information can be a helpful addition to veterinary records.
People also search for: dog health issues owner report · dog dental problems symptoms · how accurate are dog health surveys
Abstract
The objective of this project was to evaluate the accuracy of owner-reported health diagnoses in dogs compared to veterinary electronic medical records (VEMRs) using data from the Dog Aging Project (DAP), a longitudinal study of companion dogs in the United States. We 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. A subsample of 350 dogs was selected from the 2020 curated DAP dataset (n = 27,541). Dogs were included if they had VEMRs covering ≥ 85% of their life up to the time of survey completion. Forty-one dogs were excluded due to incomplete VEMRs, resulting in a final sample of 309 dogs included in this observational study comparing owner responses in the Health and Life Experience Survey (HLES) (https://github.com/dogagingproject/dataRelease/tree/master/SurveyInstruments/HLES) to VEMR data abstracted by masked reviewers. VEMR reviewers completed a survey mirroring HLES and identified supporting evidence for each diagnosis. Agreement between owner-reported and VEMR-verified diagnoses was assessed across 20 disease categories, with a focus on five target disease categories (TDCs). Agreement between owner and VEMR data was ≥ 90% in 10 of 20 disease categories. Agreement was highest in endocrine, immune, and "other" categories (99%) and lowest in dental/oral (44%). Among TDCs, orthopedic and traumatic conditions had higher agreement (>78%), while dermatologic and dental/oral categories showed the least. Owner-reported dog health data showed substantial concordance with VEMRs for many disease categories, supporting their utility in research. Thus, owner-reported diagnoses might provide a reliable and scalable supplement or alternative to VEMRs in veterinary research and epidemiology.
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Search related cases →Original publication on Semantic Scholar: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/41779687