Differentiating Pressure Ulcer Risk Levels through Interpretable Classification Models Based on Readily Measurable Indicators Vera Salmerón, Eugenio Domínguez Nogueira, Carmen Sáez, José A. Romero Béjar, José Luis Mota Romero, Emilio pressure ulcers risk level decision trees interpretability classification Share and Cite Pressure ulcers carry a significant risk in clinical practice. This paper proposes a practical and interpretable approach to estimate the risk levels of pressure ulcers using decision tree models. In order to address the common problem of imbalanced learning in nursing classification datasets, various oversampling configurations are analyzed to improve the data quality prior to modeling. The decision trees built are based on three easily identifiable and clinically relevant pressure ulcer risk indicators: mobility, activity, and skin moisture. Additionally, this research introduces a novel tabular visualization method to enhance the usability of the decision trees in clinical practice. Thus, the primary aim of this approach is to provide nursing professionals with valuable insights for assessing the potential risk levels of pressure ulcers, which could support their decision-making and allow, for example, the application of suitable preventive measures tailored to each patient’s requirements. The interpretability of the models proposed and their performance, evaluated through stratified cross-validation, make them a helpful tool for nursing care in estimating the pressure ulcer risk level. 2024-04-29T06:45:14Z 2024-04-29T06:45:14Z 2024-04-27 journal article Vera-Salmerón, E.; Domínguez-Nogueira, C.; Sáez, J.A.; Romero-Béjar, J.L.; Mota-Romero, E. Differentiating Pressure Ulcer Risk Levels through Interpretable Classification Models Based on Readily Measurable Indicators. Healthcare 2024, 12, 913. https://doi.org/10.3390/healthcare12090913 https://hdl.handle.net/10481/91208 https://doi.org/10.3390/healthcare12090913 eng http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/ open access Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 Internacional MDPI