Abstract
Objectives: To create rules in order to generate alerts regarding medication allergy, and then evaluate the appropriateness of the ontology by using it in a constructed scenario. Methods and materials: Ontology for Penicillin allergy-related adverse event was developed using Protege-OWL 4.3. In the first stage of ontology development, the domain and scope were determined. A review of existing ontology (Open Biomedical Ontologies/OBO) and Common Terminology Criteria for Adverse Events (CTCAE) were performed to limit the scope of ontology. Class hierarchy, object properties, and data properties were determined. Description logic (DL) restrictions were applied and DL queries were performed to check the correctness of class hierarchy. Simple Procedure and RDF Query Language (SPARQL) query for semantic web was attempted. Finally, rules and restrictions were defined. All those components were evaluated for consistency in knowledge representation. Results: The ontology includes 52 classes and sub-classes, 14 object and data properties. Six Semantic Web Rule Language rules were written to generate medications-allergy alert during drug prescribing. Conclusion: Developing ontology to prevent Adverse Drug Event (ADE) caused by penicillin allergy can help healthcare providers to improve patient safety. Hence, it would enhance quality of care. Thus, an ontology to detect ADE caused by penicillin allergy has been developed in this paper.