A systematic review of validated methods to capture acute bronchospasm using administrative or claims data

Area of Science:

• Health Informatics
• Clinical Epidemiology
• Database Research

Background:

• Administrative and claims databases are crucial for public health research.
• Accurate identification of acute bronchospasm in these databases is essential for epidemiological studies and healthcare management.

Purpose of the Study:

• To systematically identify and evaluate algorithms used to detect acute bronchospasm within administrative and claims data.
• To assess the validation methods and performance of these algorithms.

Main Methods:

• A comprehensive literature search of the MEDLINE database (1991-2012) was conducted.
• Studies were screened by two independent reviewers, and data on algorithm characteristics and validation were extracted.

Main Results:

• 38 studies met inclusion criteria, with ICD-9 code 493.x being most frequent.
• Only 3 studies reported validation methods, primarily in pediatric populations, with limited statistical data.
• One study showed promising results for Emergency Department chief complaint codes for acute asthma exacerbations.

Conclusions:

• There is a significant lack of rigorously validated algorithms for identifying acute bronchospasm in administrative data.
• The available validated data are limited in scope and generalizability to diverse populations.