Coding sports injury surveillance data: has version 10 of the Orchard Sports Injury Classification System improved the classification of sports medicine diagnoses?
OBJECTIVE
To compare versions 8 and 10 of the Orchard Sports Injury Classification System (OSICS) to determine whether the revised version of OSICS has improved its use in a sports medicine setting, and to assess the inter-rater reliability of OSICS-10.


METHODS
Injury surveillance data, gathered over a 2 year period in professional football, cricket and rugby union to produce 335 diagnoses, were coded with both OSICS-8 and OSICS-10. Code-diagnosis agreement was assessed for OSICS-8 in terms of whether a diagnosis was codeable or noncodeable, and for OSICS-10 by evaluating the highest available OSICS-10 tier of coding. Eight clinicians coded a list of 20 diagnoses, comprising a range of pathologies to all gross anatomical regions, which were compared to assess inter-rater reliability.


RESULTS
All diagnoses could be assigned an appropriate code with OSICS-10, compared with 87% of diagnoses that could be assigned an OSICS-8 code. Contusions comprised almost half of OSICS-8 noncodeable diagnoses. OSICS-10 tier 2 codes accounted for 20% of diagnoses coded with the updated system. Of these 20%, almost half contained a more detailed diagnosis that did not have an available OSICS-10 tier 3 or 4 code. Inter-rater reliability increased with decreasing diagnostic detail, with an overall level shown to be moderate (k = 0.56).


CONCLUSIONS
OSICS-10 is a more encompassing system than OSICS-8 to use in classifying sports medicine diagnoses, and has a moderate level of inter-rater reliability. Further minor revision may be required to address lack of detail in some strain, effusion and contusion codes.
Hammond
L E
LE
University of Nottingham, Division of Rehabilitation and Ageing, B Floor, The Medical School, Queens Medical Centre, Nottingham, NG7 2UH. mcxlh3@nottingham.ac.uk
Lilley
J
J
Ribbans
W J
WJ
D001265:Athletic Injuries / Q000145:classification* / Q000175:diagnosis; D003625:Data Collection / Q000379:methods; D005568:Forms and Records Control; D006801:Humans; D038801:International Classification of Diseases; D015588:Observer Variation; D011446:Prospective Studies; D013178:Sports Medicine / Q000145:classification*