[Registration of injuries with the help of ICD-10 at Norwegian hospitals]

One in ten hospital beds in Norway is occupied by a patient with an injury diagnosis. So far, the national injury sample registry has been the most extensive source of information on external causes of injury. From 1 January 1999, the ICD-10 (International Classification of Diseases, 10th version) was implemented as a new system for registration of diagnosis at Norwegian hospitals. The aim of this study was to find out to what extent the codes for external causes of injury were utilised by the hospitals.

Data were collected from the Norwegian Patient Register on all patients in somatic hospitals who were admitted with a new injury in 1999.

Of about 60,000 hospital admissions due to injuries at Norwegian hospitals, information on external causes was registered according to chapter XX in ICD-10 for only 39%. The registration was complete for only 23%.

Due to the incomplete use of chapter XX in ICD-10, data from this register do not, at present, give a good overview of the incidence of injuries in Norway. Hospitals should put more effects into registration in order to get high quality data.