1 La Trobe University, Australia.
2 Mercy Hospital for Women, Australia.
Health Inf Manag. 2017 Sep;46(3):113-126. doi: 10.1177/1833358316689688. Epub 2017 Jan 27.
Public health data sets such as the Victorian Perinatal Data Collection (VPDC) provide an important source for health planning, monitoring, policy, research and reporting purposes. Data quality is paramount, requiring periodic assessment of data accuracy. This article describes the conduct and findings of a validation study of data on births in 2011 extracted from the VPDC.
Data from a random sample of one percent of births in Victoria in 2011 were extracted from original medical records at the birth hospital and compared with data held in the VPDC. Accuracy was determined for 93 variables. Sensitivity, specificity, positive predictive value and negative predictive value were calculated for dichotomous items.
Accuracy of 17 data items was 99% or more, the majority being neonatal and intrapartum items, and 95% or more for 46 items. Episodes of care with the highest proportion of items with accuracy of 95% or more were neonatal and postnatal items at 80 and 64%, respectively. Accuracy was below 80% for nine items introduced in 2009. Agreement between medical records and VPDC data ranged from 48% to 100%, the exception being two highly inaccurate smoking-related items. Reasons for discrepancies between VPDC data and medical records included miscoding, missing and inconsistent information.
This study found high levels of accuracy for data reported to the VPDC for births in 2011; however, some data items introduced in 2009 and not previously validated were less accurate. Data may be used with confidence overall and with awareness of limitations for some new items.
公共卫生数据集，如维多利亚围产期数据收集（VPDC），为健康规划、监测、政策、研究和报告目的提供了重要来源。数据质量至关重要，需要定期评估数据的准确性。本文描述了对从 VPDC 中提取的 2011 年出生数据进行验证研究的开展和结果。
从维多利亚州 2011 年出生的随机抽取的百分之一的出生数据从出生医院的原始病历中提取出来，并与 VPDC 中保存的数据进行比较。对 93 个变量的准确性进行了评估。对二项式项目计算了灵敏度、特异性、阳性预测值和阴性预测值。
17 个数据项的准确性为 99%或更高，大多数是新生儿和分娩期间的项目，46 个项目的准确性为 95%或更高。护理阶段中准确性达到 95%或更高的项目比例最高的是新生儿和产后项目，分别为 80%和 64%。9 个于 2009 年引入的项目的准确性低于 80%。病历与 VPDC 数据之间的一致性范围为 48%至 100%，两个高度不准确的与吸烟相关的项目除外。VPDC 数据与病历之间的差异的原因包括编码错误、缺失和不一致的信息。
本研究发现，2011 年向 VPDC 报告的出生数据准确性很高；然而，2009 年引入的一些以前未经过验证的新数据项准确性较低。总体而言，可以有信心地使用数据，但要注意一些新项的局限性。
