Background: The unique structure and coding of the Clinical Practice Research Datalink (CPRD) presents challenges for epidemiologic analysis and for comparisons with other databases. To address this limitation we sought to transform CPRD into the Observational Medical Outcomes Partnership (OMOP) Common Data Model (CDM).
Methods: An extraction, transformation and loading process was developed, which detailed source code mappings, Read code domain classification, an imputation algorithm for drug duration and special handling of lifestyle/clinical data. Completeness and accuracy of the above elements were assessed. A final validation exercise involved replication of a published case-control study that examined use of nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs) and the risk of first-time acute myocardial infarction (AMI) in raw CPRD data and the CPRD CDM.
Findings: All elements of the CPRD CDM transformation were assessed to be of high quality. 99.9 % of database condition records and 89.7 % of database drug records were mapped (majority unmapped drugs were devices and over-the-counter products); 3.1 % of duration imputations were deemed possibly erroneous and prevalences for selected conditions and drugs across CPRD raw and CDM data were equivalent. Results between the replication raw data and CDM study agreed for conditions, demographics and lifestyle data with slight NSAID exposure data loss owing to unmapped drugs.
Conclusion: CPRD can be accurately transformed into the OMOP CDM with acceptable information loss across drugs, conditions and observations. We determined that for a particular use, case CDM structure was adequate and mappings could be improved but did not substantially change the results of our analysis.