SynthesisBMC psychiatry2016
Can mental health diagnoses in administrative data be used for research? A systematic review of the accuracy of routinely collected diagnoses.
Synthesis in BMC psychiatry, 2016. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 139 papers, 2 of them syntheses that pooled it.
What it found
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The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
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Who cites it
139 citing papers in PubMed, 2 syntheses or guidelines pooled it, 262 citations in OpenAlex.
- Pooled it
- Case-finding for common mental disorders in primary care using routinely collected data: a systematic review.Social psychiatry and psychiatric epidemiology · 2019Pooled it
- Clinical and cost-effectiveness of a standardised diagnostic assessment for children and adolescents with emotional difficulties: the STADIA multi-centre RCT.Health technology assessment (Winchester, England) · 2025Trial
- The effectiveness of additional screening examinations for children and adolescents in Germany: a longitudinal retrospective cohort study.BMC pediatrics · 2023Trial
- Trial
- Major mental disorders in offspring of mothers with polycystic ovary syndrome.Archives of women's mental health · 2026Article
- Article
- Comorbid Mood and Anxiety Disorder Diagnoses in Patients With First-Episode Psychosis: Comparison Between Research and Clinical Diagnoses.Early intervention in psychiatry · 2026Article
- Substance Use and Incidence of Psychosis Diagnoses Among Gay, Bisexual, and Other Men Who Have Sex with Men Compared with Males from the General Population: A Matched Cohort Study from Metro Vancouver, Canada.Substance use & misuse · 2026Article
- Accuracy of administrative data in ascertaining health conditions: a systematic review.JAMIA open · 2026Review
- The Impact of Pre-Existing Psychiatric Disorders on Gastric Cancer Stage and Mortality in Older Adults.Cancer medicine · 2026Article
- Factors Associated With Opioid Agonist Treatment Engagement and Harm Reduction Service Use: Findings From the New South Wales Opioid Dependence Survey.Drug and alcohol review · 2026Article
- Letter to editor about "The mediating effect of blood biomarkers in the associations between inflammatory bowel disease and incident psychiatric disorders: a prospective cohort study".International journal of surgery (London, England) · 2026Article
- Who Are People with Psychosis Delusional about? A Study of Social Agents in the Phenomenology of Delusions.Psychopathology · 2026Article
- Risk of Psychiatric Morbidity in People Living With Human Immunodeficiency Virus: A Population-Based Cohort Study.Psychiatry investigation · 2026Article
- Incidence of anxiety disorders following Parkinson's disease: a population-based cohort study.Frontiers in psychiatry · 2026Article
- Sociodemographic and clinical factors associated with use of depression treatment among people with HIV in the United States: An electronic health records-based cohort study.Journal of affective disorders · 2025Article
- Exposing the loci of bias: a taxonomical exploration of sources of bias in population mental health research.Population health metrics · 2025Review
- Depression Among Individuals with Irritable Bowel Syndrome: A Nationwide Claims-Based Analysis of 3.9 Million Koreans.Healthcare (Basel, Switzerland) · 2025Article
- The broad structure of psychopathology in the All of Us Research Program.Psychological medicine · 2025Article
79 more citing papers are in PubMed but not listed here.
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
3 authors at 2 institutions in 1 country.
Funding
Abstract
backgroundThere is increasing availability of data derived from diagnoses made routinely in mental health care, and interest in using these for research. Such data will be subject to both diagnostic (clinical) error and administrative error, and so it is necessary to evaluate its accuracy against a reference-standard. Our aim was to review studies where this had been done to guide the use of other available data.
methodsWe searched PubMed and EMBASE for studies comparing routinely collected mental health diagnosis data to a reference standard. We produced diagnostic category-specific positive predictive values (PPV) and Cohen's kappa for each study.
resultsWe found 39 eligible studies. Studies were heterogeneous in design, with a wide range of outcomes. Administrative error was small compared to diagnostic error. PPV was related to base rate of the respective condition, with overall median of 76 %. Kappa results on average showed a moderate agreement between source data and reference standard for most diagnostic categories (median kappa = 0.45-0.55); anxiety disorders and schizoaffective disorder showed poorer agreement. There was no significant benefit in accuracy for diagnoses made in inpatients.
conclusionsThe current evidence partly answered our questions. There was wide variation in the quality of source data, with a risk of publication bias. For some diagnoses, especially psychotic categories, administrative data were generally predictive of true diagnosis. For others, such as anxiety disorders, the data were less satisfactory. We discuss the implications of our findings, and the need for researchers to validate routine diagnostic data.
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Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.