ArticleBritish journal of clinical pharmacology2013
Validation of suicide and self-harm records in the Clinical Practice Research Datalink.
Article in British journal of clinical pharmacology, 2013. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 52 papers, 2 of them syntheses that pooled it.
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Who cites it
52 citing papers in PubMed, 2 syntheses or guidelines pooled it.
- SARS-CoV-2 Infection and the Risk of Suicidal and Self-Harm Thoughts and Behaviour: A Systematic Review.Canadian journal of psychiatry. Revue canadienne de psychiatrie · 2022Pooled it
- Identification of mental health and quality of life outcomes in primary care databases in the UK: a systematic review.BMJ open · 2019Pooled it
- Self-harm before and during imprisonment: cohort study of males in prison linking population-based routinely collected data in Wales.BJPsych open · 2025Article
- Do the pharmacokinetics of statins explain psychiatric symptom improvement from adjunctive statin prescribing in severe mental illness? Three target trial emulation studies.BMJ mental health · 2025Article
- Gambling, suicide and mental health treatment utilisation in Wales: case-control, whole-population-based study.BJPsych open · 2025Article
- The risk of acute infection in association with first ever diagnosed depression: a cohort study.Social psychiatry and psychiatric epidemiology · 2025Article
- Use of gabapentinoid treatment and the risk of self-harm: population based self-controlled case series study.BMJ (Clinical research ed.) · 2025Article
- Glucagon-like peptide-1 receptor agonists and risk of suicidality among patients with type 2 diabetes: active comparator, new user cohort study.BMJ (Clinical research ed.) · 2025Article
- Evaluation of common prescription analgesics and adjuvant analgesics as markers of suicide risk: a longitudinal population-based study in England.The Lancet regional health. Europe · 2023Article
- Impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on domiciliary care workers in Wales, UK: a data linkage cohort study using the SAIL Databank.BMJ open · 2023Article
- Characterizing Autism Spectrum Disorder and Predicting Suicide Risk for Pediatric Psychiatric Emergency Services Encounters.AMIA ... Annual Symposium proceedings. AMIA Symposium · 2023Article
- Article
- Risk of Suicide After Dementia Diagnosis.JAMA neurology · 2022Article
- Angiotensin-converting enzyme inhibitors and angiotensin receptor blockers and risk of depression among older people with hypertension.Journal of psychopharmacology (Oxford, England) · 2022Article
- Article
- Can the Risk of Severe Depression-Related Outcomes Be Reduced by Tailoring the Antidepressant Therapy to Patient Characteristics?American journal of epidemiology · 2021Article
- Validity of algorithms for identifying five chronic conditions in MedicineInsight, an Australian national general practice database.BMC health services research · 2021Article
- Risk of neuropsychiatric and cardiovascular adverse events following treatment with varenicline and nicotine replacement therapy in the UK Clinical Practice Research Datalink: a case-cross-over study.Addiction (Abingdon, England) · 2021Article
- Clinical management and mortality risk in those with eating disorders and self-harm: e-cohort study using the SAIL databank.BJPsych open · 2021Article
- Associations between breast cancer survivorship and adverse mental health outcomes: A matched population-based cohort study in the United Kingdom.PLoS medicine · 2021Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
6 authors.
Funding
Abstract
aimsThe UK Clinical Practice Research Datalink (CPRD) is increasingly being used to investigate suicide-related adverse drug reactions. No studies have comprehensively validated the recording of suicide and nonfatal self-harm in the CPRD. We validated general practitioners' recording of these outcomes using linked Office for National Statistics (ONS) mortality and Hospital Episode Statistics (HES) admission data.
methodsWe identified cases of suicide and self-harm recorded using appropriate Read codes in the CPRD between 1998 and 2010 in patients aged ≥15 years. Suicides were defined as patients with Read codes for suicide recorded within 95 days of their death. International Classification of Diseases codes were used to identify suicides/hospital admissions for self-harm in the linked ONS and HES data sets. We compared CPRD-derived cases/incidence of suicide and self-harm with those identified from linked ONS mortality and HES data, national suicide incidence rates and published self-harm incidence data.
resultsOnly 26.1% (n = 590) of the 'true' (ONS-confirmed) suicides were identified using Read codes. Furthermore, only 55.5% of Read code-identified suicides were confirmed as suicide by the ONS data. Of the HES-identified cases of self-harm, 68.4% were identified in the CPRD using Read codes. The CPRD self-harm rates based on Read codes had similar age and sex distributions to rates observed in self-harm hospital registers, although rates were underestimated in all age groups.
conclusionsThe CPRD recording of suicide using Read codes is unreliable, with significant inaccuracy (over- and under-reporting). Future CPRD suicide studies should use linked ONS mortality data. The under-reporting of self-harm appears to be less marked.
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