Opioid-related deaths and previous care for drug use and pain relief in Sweden.

Aim: In 2006-2014, the rate of drug-related deaths, typically opioid poisonings, more than doubled in Sweden. Opioid prescriptions for pain control or opioid agonist therapy also increased. In this retrospective study, we compared death rates between individuals whose first recorded contact with prescribed opioids was for pain control and individuals that had received substance use disorder (SUD) treatment before their first recorded opioid prescription.

Accuracy of mortality statistics in Palestine: a retrospective cohort study.

Objective: To examine the accuracy of mortality statistics in Palestine, to identify gaps and to provide evidence-based recommendations to improve mortality statistics in Palestine.

Study Design And Setting: A retrospective death registry-based study that examined a stratified random sample of death notification forms (DNFs) of patients who died in hospitals in Palestine was reported in 2012. We randomly selected 600 deceased from the Cause of Death Registry: 400 from the West Bank and 200 from the Gaza Strip.

Drug-related deaths: Statistics based on death certificates miss one-third of cases.

Statistics on drug-related deaths (DRD) provide crucial information on the drug situation. The European Monitoring Centre for Drug and Drug Addiction (EMCDDA) has published a specification for extracting DRD from national mortality registers to be used in international comparisons. However, surprisingly little is known of the accuracy of DRD statistics derived from national mortality registers.

The Swedish cause of death register.

Sweden has a long tradition of recording cause of death data. The Swedish cause of death register is a high quality virtually complete register of all deaths in Sweden since 1952. Although originally created for official statistics, it is a highly important data source for medical research since it can be linked to many other national registers, which contain data on social and health factors in the Swedish population.

Automated comparison of last hospital main diagnosis and underlying cause of death ICD10 codes, France, 2008-2009.

Background: In the age of big data in healthcare, automated comparison of medical diagnoses in large scale databases is a key issue. Our objectives were: 1) to formally define and identify cases of independence between last hospitalization main diagnosis (MD) and death registry underlying cause of death (UCD) for deceased subjects hospitalized in their last year of life; 2) to study their distribution according to socio-demographic and medico-administrative variables; 3) to discuss the interest of this method in the specific context of hospital quality of care assessment.

Methods: 1) Elaboration of an algorithm comparing MD and UCD, relying on Iris, a coding system based on international standards.

Accuracy of death certificates of cardiovascular disease in a community intervention in Sweden.

Aim: The aim was to investigate the possibility to evaluate the mortality pattern in a community intervention programme against cardiovascular disease by official death certificates.

Methods: For all deceased in the intervention area (Norsjö), the accuracy of the official death certificates were compared with matched controls in the rest of Västerbotten. The official causes of death were compared with new certificates, based on the last clinical record, issued by three of the authors, and coded by one of the authors, all four accordingly blinded.

Unexplained differences between hospital and mortality data indicated mistakes in death certification: an investigation of 1,094 deaths in Sweden during 1995.

Objective: Mortality statistics are important for epidemiological research. We examine if discrepancies between death certificate (DC) and hospital discharge condition (HDC) indicate certification errors.

Study Design And Setting: From 39,872 hospital deaths in Sweden in 1995, we randomly selected 600 "cases," where DC and HDC were incompatible, and 600 compatible "controls," matched on sex, age, and underlying cause of death.

Methodology of studies evaluating death certificate accuracy were flawed.

Background And Objective: Statistics on causes of death are important for epidemiologic research. Studies that evaluate the source data often give conflicting results, which raise questions about comparability and validity of methods.

Methods: For 44 recent evaluation studies we examined the methods employed and assessed the reproducibility.

An international comparison study indicated physicians' habits in reporting diabetes in part I of death certificate affected reported national diabetes mortality.

Background And Objective: Physicians may find it confusing to decide whether to report diagnoses in part I or part II of the death certificate. The aim of this study was to contrast differences in diabetes mortality through a comparison of physicians' habits in reporting diabetes in part I of death certification among Taiwan, Australia, and Sweden.

Methods: A cross-sectional, intercountry comparison study.

Comparing hospital discharge records with death certificates: can the differences be explained?

Study Objective: The quality of mortality statistics is important for epidemiological research. Considerable discrepancies have been reported between death certificates and corresponding hospital discharge records. This study examines whether differences between the death certificate's underlying cause of death and the main condition from the final hospital discharge record can be explained by differences in ICD selection procedures.