Validation of the Canadian Institute for Health Information Diagnostic Codes for Benign Gynaecologic Surgery

We investigated the validity of the 10th Revision Canadian modification of International Statistical Classification of Disease and Related Health Problems (ICD-10-CA) diagnostic codes for surgery for benign gynaecologic conditions in the Canadian Institute for Health Information Discharge Abstract Database (CIHI-DAD), the main source of routinely collected data in Canada. Reabstracted data from patient charts was compared to ICD-10-CA codes and measures of validity were calculated with 95% confidence intervals. A total of 1068 procedures were identified. More objective, structural diagnoses (fibroids, prolapse) had higher sensitivity and near-perfect Kappa coefficients, while more subjective, symptomatic diagnoses (abnormal uterine bleeding, pelvic pain) had lower sensitivity and moderate-substantial Kappa coefficients. Specificity, positive predictive values, and negative predictive values were generally high for all diagnoses. These findings support the use of CIHI-DAD data for gynaecologic research.