Development of a definition and rules for causal attribution of post-colonoscopy bleeding.

Background: Post-colonoscopy bleeding (PCB) is an important colonoscopy quality indicator that is recommended to be routinely collected by colorectal cancer screening programs and endoscopy quality improvement programs. We created a standardized and reliable definition of PCB and set of rules for attributing the relatedness of PCB to a colonoscopy.

Methods: PCB events were identified from colonoscopies performed at the Forzani & MacPhail Colon Cancer Screening Centre. Existing definitions and relatedness rules for PCB were reviewed by the authors and a draft definition and set of rules was created. The definition and rules were revised after initial testing was performed using a set of 15 bleeding events. Information available for each event included the original endoscopy report and data abstracted from the emergency or inpatient record by a trained research assistant. A validation set of 32 bleeding events were then reviewed to assess their interrater reliability by having three endoscopists and one research assistant complete independent reviews and three endoscopists complete a consensus review. The Kappa statistic was used to measure interrater reliability.

Results: The panel classified 28 of 32 events as meeting the definition of PCB and rated 7, 8 and 6 events as definitely, probably and possibly related to the colonoscopy, respectively. The Kappa for the definition of PCB for the three independent reviews was 0.82 (substantial agreement). The Kappa for the attribution of the PCB to the colonoscopy by the three endosocopists was 0.74 (substantial agreement). The research assistant had a high agreement with the panel for both the definition (100% agreement) and application of the causal criteria (kappa 0.95).

Conclusions: A standardized definition of PCB and attribution rules achieved high interrater reliability by endoscopists and a non-endoscopist and provides a template of required data for event adjudication by screening and quality improvement programs.