Validity of dementia diagnoses in the Danish hospital registers.
BACKGROUND
The validity of dementia diagnoses in the Danish nationwide hospital registers was evaluated to determine the value of these registers in epidemiological research about dementia.


METHODS
Two hundred patients were randomly selected from 4,682 patients registered for the first time with a dementia diagnosis in the last 6 months of 2003. The patients' medical journals were reviewed to evaluate if they fulfilled ICD-10 and/or DSM-IV criteria for dementia and specific dementia subtypes. The patients who were still alive in 2006 were invited to an interview.


RESULTS
One hundred and ninety-seven journals were available for review and 51 patients were interviewed. A registered diagnosis of dementia was found to be correct in 169 (85.8%) cases. Regarding dementia subtypes, the degree of agreement between the registers and the results of the validating process was low with a kappa of 0.36 (95% CI 0.24-0.48).


CONCLUSIONS
The validity of dementia syndrome in the Danish hospital registers was high and allows for epidemiological studies about dementia. Alzheimer's disease, although underregistered, also had a good validity once the diagnosis was registered. In general, other ICD-10 dementia subtypes in the registers had a low validity and are less suitable for epidemiological research.
Phung
Thien Kieu Thi
TK
Memory Disorders Research Group, Department of Neurology, The Centre of Neuroscience, Copenhagen University Hospital Rigshospitalet, Copenhagen, Denmark. kieu.phung@rh.hosp.dk
Andersen
Birgitte Bo
BB
Høgh
Peter
P
Kessing
Lars Vedel
LV
Mortensen
Preben Bo
PB
Waldemar
Gunhild
G
D000368:Aged; D000369:Aged, 80 and over; D003704:Dementia / Q000175:diagnosis* / Q000453:epidemiology / Q000523:psychology; D003718:Denmark / Q000453:epidemiology; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007406:Interview, Psychological; D008297:Male; D008499:Medical Records; D009483:Neuropsychological Tests; D011569:Psychiatric Status Rating Scales; D012042:Registries; D015203:Reproducibility of Results