Factors associated with recording the exercise vital sign (EVS) in the electronic health records of patients in chiropractic teaching clinics.

Objective: We set out to identify factors associated with recording of exercise minutes per week in electronic patient files at chiropractic teaching clinics to better understand whether this important health determinant - exercise vital sign (EVS) - is captured or not.
Methods: Patient files (4018) from 23 clinicians eligible for inclusion underwent multilevel logistic regression modeling to explore the association between a recorded EVS and the following: patients' age, sex, comorbidities and interns nested within clinicians.
Results: EVS discussion was documented in 81.2% of patient files, whereas 44.9% had exercise minutes recorded numerically. Clinicians and interns explained 1.7% and 25.5% of the variance in the EVS outcome.
Conclusion: To enhance EVS recording, clinic directors and clinicians should better educate the interns on the importance of exercise is medicine and appropriate record keeping, as they explained the largest portion of variability in recording exercise in minutes per week.
Competing Interests: The authors have no disclaimers or competing interests to report in the preparation of this manuscript. This work was funded internally by the Canadian Memorial Chiropractic College.
(© JCCA 2022.)