Identification of Mood Disorders in Self-Reported Versus Health Administrative Data

Producing relevant knowledge on the prevalence of mood disorders (MDs) requires a clear identification of people living with the condition. Analyzing this multifaceted disease from the perspective of health administrative data and population-based surveys could contribute to document inconsistencies between these data sources and highlight the strengths and limitations of each methodological approaches.

The aim of this study was to estimate the prevalence of MD disease, assess concordance of MD patterns in population-based surveys versus health administrative data, and investigate statistical differences in characteristics between individuals presenting the disease in each data sources.

This study used the Care Trajectories-Enriched Data (TorSaDE) cohort. The TorSaDE cohort is built by merging five waves of the Canadian Community Health Survey (CCHS) with health administrative data of the province of Quebec, Canada. The sample includes individuals who participated in at least one round of CCHS and for whom evidence of use of health services in the year of CCHS completion and the year before were present in health administrative data. The cohort was split into four groups based on the presence and absence of MD in self-reported versus health administrative data. Groups' characteristics were compared using chi-square tests and ANOVA.

The study cohort was composed of 96,079 individuals, of which 10,418 (10.8%) had MD, regardless of the data sources. Self-reported prevalence of MD was 6.03%, while the prevalence from health administrative data was about 7.79%. Estimates showed a low level of concordance between the two measures, as only 27.4% of people presenting this medical condition were identified in both data sources. Furthermore, individuals identified with MD only in survey data had poorer socioeconomic outcomes but better health outcomes than those from the concordant group (i.e., identified in both data sources). In addition, people presenting MD in health administrative data only had better socioeconomic and health outcomes than those who reported MD diagnosis only in survey data.

Findings suggest that each measure capture different specific subpopulations. Estimates obtained from each source should thus be contextualized and interpreted with caution.