DV_QUANTITY or DV_DURATION?

Technical (archive)
1

I'm wondering which is the correct use of DV_DURATION and DV_QUANTITY...
When using DV_QUANTITY with property attribute 'time' (openehr::128) and
when using DV_DURATION?

Regards
leo

2

The most usual uses are:

  • DV_DURATION - time periods in the ‘social’ timescale, e.g. hours, days, weeks, months, years - e.g. pregnancy, Expected Date of Delivery, duration of migraine

  • DV_QUANTITY - short time periods, being treated more mathematically, e.g. seconds or smaller, minutes and hours
    both can be used for computation and can be inter-converted.

  • thomas

3

Hi Thomas,

I think I have used DV+DURATION in all of these circumstances.. My
impression has been that DV_QUANTITY with time property was
deprecated.

Ian

Dr Ian McNicoll
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Clinical analyst, Ocean Informatics
openEHR Clinical Knowledge Editor www.openehr.org/knowledge
Honorary Senior Research Associate, CHIME, UCL
BCS Primary Health Care SG Group www.phcsg.org

4

Hi

The advantage of duration is that time can be expressed in the usual way 2
months, 6 weeks, 2hr 30min, 5min 30sec etc.

The Quantity has the advantage of being able to set a fixed unit. This is
necessary sometimes and although this can be done with duration it is not
really the focus. I think both have a role.

Cheers, Sam