Purpose: To establish the validity of intracerebral hemorrhage (ICH) diagnoses in the Danish Stroke Registry (DSR) and the Danish National Patient Registry (DNPR).
Patients and methods: Based on discharge summaries and brain imaging reports, we estimated the positive predictive value (PPV) of a first-ever diagnosis code for ICH (ICD-10, code I61) for all patients in the Region of Southern Denmark (1.2 million) during 2009-2017 according to either DNPR or DSR. We estimated PPVs for any non-traumatic ICH (a-ICH) and spontaneous ICH (s-ICH) alone (ie, without underlying structural cause). We also calculated the sensitivity of these diagnoses in each of the registers. Finally, we classified the location of verified s-ICH.
Results: A total of 3,956 patients with ICH diagnosis codes were studied (DSR only: 87; DNPR only: 1,513; both registries: 2,356). In the DSR, the PPVs were 86.5% (95% CI=85.1-87.8) for a-ICH and 81.8% (95% CI=80.2-83.3) for s-ICH. The PPVs in DNPR (discharge code, primary diagnostic position) were 76.2% (95% CI=74.7-77.6) for a-ICH and 70.2% (95% CI=68.6-71.8) for s-ICH. Sensitivity for a-ICH and s-ICH was 76.4% (95% CI=74.8-78.0) and 78.7% (95% CI=77.1-80.2) in DSR, and 87.3% (95% CI=86.0-88.5) and 87.7% (95% CI=86.3-88.9) in DNPR. The location of verified s-ICH was lobar (39%), deep (33.6%), infratentorial (13.2%), large unclassifiable (11%), isolated intraventricular (1.9%), or unclassifiable due to insufficient information (1.3%).
Conclusion: The validity of a-ICH diagnoses is high in both registries. For s-ICH, PPV was higher in DSR, while sensitivity was higher in DNPR. The location of s-ICH was similar to distributions seen in other populations.
Keywords: epidemiology; intracerebral hemorrhage; register-based research; stroke; validity.
© 2020 Hald et al.