Validity of asthma diagnoses in the Danish National Registry of Patients, including an assessment of impact of misclassification on risk estimates in an actual dataset

Annette Østergaard Jensen1, Gunnar Lauge Nielsen2, Vera Ehrenstein11Department of Clinical Epidemiology, Aarhus University Hospital, Aarhus, Denmark; 2Department of Medicine, Himmerland Hospital, Farsø, DenmarkObjective: Asthma diagnoses recorded in the Danish National Registry of Patients (DNRP) are a misclassified measure of the actual asthma status. We quantified this misclassification and examined its impact on the results of an epidemiologic study on asthma.Study design and setting: We validated the DNRP asthma diagnoses against records of asthma diagnosed at medical examinations conducted during mandatory conscription evaluation. We had data on 22,177 male conscripts who were born from January 1st, 1977 to December 31st, 1983, in a conscription district in northern Denmark. We obtained asthma diagnoses recorded among the conscripts in the DNRP from January 1st, 1977 through December 31st, 2003. We estimated sensitivity, specificity, and positive predictive value (PPV) of the DNRP asthma diagnoses. We then conducted sensitivity analysis to quantify the impact of nondifferential misclassification on the rate ratios measuring the association between asthma and risks of different skin cancers.Results: The sensitivity of the DNRP for detecting an asthma diagnosis was 0.44 (95% confidence interval [CI]: 0.42–0.47), the specificity was 0.98 (95% CI: 0.98–0.99) and the PPV was 0.65 (95% CI: 0.62–0.68). Both direct and inverse associations between asthma and the different types of skin cancers became more pronounced after correcting for the misclassification.Conclusion: The DNRP registered asthma diagnosis may be used to measure asthma status in epidemiologic studies seeking to estimate relative effects of asthma. Even at low values of DNRP sensitivity of asthma diagnoses were not sufficient to nullify observed relative associations in an actual dataset. The specificity of DNRP asthma diagnosis is high.Keywords: asthma, validity, registry data, epidemiolog

Association of Apgar score at five minutes with long-term neurologic disability and cognitive function in a prevalence study of Danish conscripts

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Apgar score is used for rapid assessment of newborns. Low five-minute Apgar score has been associated with increased risk of severe neurologic outcome, but data on milder outcomes, particularly in the long term, are limited. We aimed to examine the association of five-minute Apgar score with prevalence of neurologic disability and with cognitive function in early adulthood.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>We conducted a prevalence study among draft-liable men born in Denmark in 1978–1983 and presenting for the mandatory army evaluation in a northern Danish conscription district. We linked records of this evaluation, which includes medical exam and intelligence testing, with the conscripts' records in the Medical Birth Registry, containing perinatal data. We examined prevalence of neurologic disability and of low cognitive function according to five-minute Apgar score.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>Less than 1% (136/19,559) of the conscripts had 5-minute Apgar scores <7. Prevalence of neurologic disability was 2.2% (435/19,559) overall; among conscripts with Apgar scores <7, 7–9, and 10 (reference), it was 8.8%, 2.5%, and 2.2% respectively. The corresponding prevalences of low cognitive function (intelligence test score in the bottom quartile) were 34.9%, 27.2%, and 25.0%. The outcomes were more prevalent if Apgar score <7 was accompanied by certain fetal or obstetric adversities. After accounting for perinatal characteristics, 5-mintue Apgar score <7 was associated with prevalence ratios of 4.02 (95% confidence interval: 2.24; 7.24) for neurologic disability and 1.33 (0.94; 1.88) for low cognitive function.</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>A five-minute Apgar score <7 has a consistent association with prevalence of neurologic disability and with low cognitive function in early adulthood.</p