Validation of Diagnostic and Procedural Codes for Identification of Acute Cardiovascular Events in US Veterans with Rheumatoid Arthritis.

Objective: To assess the accuracy of International Classification of Diseases, Ninth Revision, and Current Procedural Terminology codes for identifying cardiovascular (CV) events (myocardial infarction [MI], stroke, coronary artery bypass graft [CABG], and percutaneous coronary intervention [PCI]) in enrollees of the Veterans Affairs Rheumatoid Arthritis (VARA) registry.

Design: We performed a validation study from VARA enrollment until 6/1/2010 to compare the accuracy of CV events in those with and without CV-event coding in inpatient and outpatient records to evaluate for CV events +/- 3 months of the coding. The positive predictive value (PPV) was calculated, and codes with a PPV ≥50% were included in a composite coding algorithm.

Prospective study of posttraumatic stress disorder and disease activity outcomes in US veterans with rheumatoid arthritis.

Objective: To examine the relationship between posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and disease activity in US veterans with rheumatoid arthritis (RA).

Methods: US veterans with RA were enrolled in a longitudinal observational study and were categorized as having PTSD, other anxiety/depression disorders, or neither of these psychiatric diagnoses using administrative codes. Generalized linear mixed-effects models were used to examine the associations of the diagnostic groups with outcomes measured over a mean followup period of 3.