Evidence map›Paper›PMID 29500200›Full record

ArticleBMJ open2018

Linkage of Maternity Hospital Episode Statistics data to birth registration and notification records for births in England 2005-2014: Quality assurance of linkage of routine data for singleton and multiple births.

Gillian Harper

Abstract read
In one paragraph

Article in BMJ open, 2018. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 18 papers.

0numbers the graph read from it
0cells of the map it votes in
18citing papers in PubMed
–field-weighted citation impact
1 · What the graph read from it

What it found

Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.

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.

2 · The registry

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.

Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.

3 · Its place in the literature

Who cites it

18 citing papers in PubMed.

  1. Trial
  2. Article
  3. Article
  4. Article
  5. Data resource profile: Scottish Linked Pregnancy and Baby Dataset (SLiPBD).International journal of population data science · 2024
    Article
  6. Article
  7. Article
  8. Article
  9. Article
  10. Article
  11. Article
  12. Article
  13. Article
  14. Article
  15. Article
  16. Article
  17. Article
  18. Article
4 · The record

Corrections and comments

PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.

5 · Who and what money

Authors and funding

1 author.

Gillian HarperCentre for Maternal and Child Health Research, University of London, London, UK.ORCID 0000-0002-3492-2076

Funding

Department of Health 12/136/93Department of Health PB-PG-0107-12209
6 · The paper itself

Abstract

objectivesTo quality assure a Trusted Third Party linked data set to prepare it for analysis.

settingBirth registration and notification records from the Office for National Statistics for all births in England 2005-2014 linked to Maternity Hospital Episode Statistics (HES) delivery records by NHS Digital using mothers' identifiers.

participantsAll 6 676 912 births that occurred in England from 1 January 2005 to 31 December 2014. PRIMARY AND SECONDARY OUTCOME MEASURES: Every link between a registered birth and an HES delivery record for the study period was categorised as either the same baby or a different baby to the same mother, or as a wrong link, by comparing common baby data items and valid values in key fields with stepwise deterministic rules. Rates of preserved and discarded links were calculated and which features were more common in each group were assessed.

resultsNinety-eight per cent of births originally linked to HES were left with one preserved link. The majority of discarded links were due to duplicate HES delivery records. Of the 4854 discarded links categorised as wrong links, clerical checks found 85% were false-positives links, 13% were quality assurance false negatives and 2% were undeterminable. Births linked using a less reliable stage of the linkage algorithm, births at home and in the London region, and with birth weight or gestational age values missing in HES were more likely to have all links discarded.

conclusionsLinkage error, data quality issues, and false negatives in the quality assurance procedure were uncovered. The procedure could be improved by allowing for transposition in date fields, and more discrimination between missing and differing values. The availability of identifiers in the datasets supported clerical checking. Other research using Trusted Third Party linkage should not assume the linked dataset is error-free or optimised for their analysis, and allow sufficient resources for this.

Indexed as

Data AccuracyHospitals, MaternityMultiple Birth OffspringParturitionAdultBirth WeightEnglandFemaleGestational AgeHospital RecordsHumansInfant, NewbornMaleMedical Record LinkagePregnancyQuality Assurance, Health Careadministrative databirths and maternitiesdata linkagequality assurance

Identifiers

PMID29500200
PMCPMC5855305

What OpenQuestion holds

Textmetadata
LicenceCC BY
Read underepoch 390

Registered trials

None linked

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.