Observations of daily living (ODLs) are cues that people attend to in the course of their everyday life, that inform them about their health.
[1][2][3] ODLs are different from signs, symptoms, and clinical indicators in that they are defined by the patient, and are not necessarily directly mapped to biomedical models of disease and illness.
For example, a patient with diabetes may record their blood glucose levels every day at home, generating data to share with their clinician.
That kind of patient-generated data is crucial to inform clinical decision making, but does not constitute ODLs.
ODLs are typically defined by patients[5] and their families[6] because they are meaningful to them,[7] and help them self-manage their health[8] and make decisions about it.