External review and validation of the Swedish national inpatient register.

ABSTRACT:

Background

The Swedish National Inpatient Register (IPR), also called the Hospital Discharge Register, is a principal source of data for numerous research projects. The IPR is part of the National Patient Register. The Swedish IPR was launched in 1964 (psychiatric diagnoses from 1973) but complete coverage did not begin until 1987. Currently, more than 99% of all somatic (including surgery) and psychiatric hospital discharges are registered in the IPR. A previous validation of the IPR by the National Board of Health and Welfare showed that 85-95% of all diagnoses in the IPR are valid. The current paper describes the history, structure, coverage and quality of the Swedish IPR.

Methods and results

In January 2010, we searched the medical databases, Medline and HighWire, using

SUBMITTER: Ludvigsson JF 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC3142234 | biostudies-literature | 2011 Jun

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature