Publications by authors named "Christine St Germaine-Smith"
Background: Birth defects remain a significant source of worldwide morbidity and mortality. Strong scientific evidence shows that folic acid fortification of a region's food supply leads to a decrease in spina bifida (a birth defect of the spine). Still, many countries around the world have yet to approve mandatory fortification through government legislation.
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- - The study aims to review how administrative data can be used to identify depression, focusing on validated case definitions using ICD codes, which are less resource-intensive than traditional surveys.
- - The systematic review analyzed 2,014 abstracts, eventually narrowing it down to three relevant studies that utilized ICD-9 and ICD-10 codes for depression, while also validating both existing and enhanced case definitions across a hospital database.
- - Although the new case definitions demonstrated high specificity and positive predictive value, their sensitivity was lower, indicating a need for improved strategies to accurately identify depression in administrative healthcare data.
Background: Primary brain tumors are a heterogeneous group of benign and malignant tumors arising from the brain parenchyma and its surrounding structures. The epidemiology of these tumors is poorly understood. The aim of our study is to systematically review the latest literature on the incidence and prevalence of primary brain tumors.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFObjective: Administrative health data are frequently used for large population-based studies. However, the validity of these data for identifying neurologic conditions is uncertain.
Methods: This article systematically reviews the literature to assess the validity of administrative data for identifying patients with neurologic conditions.
The objective of this study was to develop and validate coding algorithms for epilepsy using ICD-coded inpatient claims, physician claims, and emergency room (ER) visits. 720/2049 charts from 2003 and 1533/3252 charts from 2006 were randomly selected for review from 13 neurologists' practices as the "gold standard" for diagnosis. Epilepsy status in each chart was determined by 2 trained physicians.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFPurpose: To develop an epilepsy-specific comorbidity risk adjustment index for mortality outcomes research.
Methods: Data were extracted from five linked administrative databases in Calgary, Canada from April 1, 1996 to March 31, 2004. Epilepsy patients were defined using a validated ICD-9-CM- and ICD-10-CA-based case definition.