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This repository relates to a project on cause of death coding in asthma, using ICD-10.
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Holly Tibble
While clinical coding is intended to be an objective and standardized practice, it is important to recognize that it is not entirely the case. The clinical and bureaucratic practices from event of death to a case being entered into a research dataset are important context for analyzing and interpreting this data. Subjectivity and variation in practices can influence the accuracy of the final coded record in two different stages: the reporting of the death certificate, and the ICD coding of that certificate. This study investigated 91,022 deaths recorded in the Scottish Asthma Learning Healthcare System dataset between 2000 and 2017. We found that one in every 200 deaths in this were coded as being asthma related, as denoted by the inclusion of ICD-10 codes J45 and J46. Infection (predominantly pneumonia) was more commonly reported as a contributing cause of death when J45 was the primary coded cause, compared to J46, which specifically denotes asthma attacks. Further inspection of patient history can be essential to validate deaths recorded as caused by asthma, and to identify potentially mis-recorded non-asthma deaths, particularly in those with complex comorbidities.
The citation and a link to the paper will be added upon publication.