Accuracy of evidence-based criteria for identifying an incident hip fracture in the absence of the date of injury: a retrospective database study.

Abstract

OBJECTIVES: Hospital discharge data (HDD) in many health systems do not capture the date of injury (DOI); the absence of this date hinders researchers' ability to distinguish repeat from incident injury admissions. Various approaches using somewhat arbitrary criteria have been explored to increase the accuracy of incident injury identification. However, these approaches have not been validated against a data source which contains DOI. The aim of this study was to determine the accuracy of evidence-based criteria for identifying fall-related incident hip fractures in the absence of DOI using HDD containing DOI as the reference standard. DESIGN: Retrospective database study. SETTING: New Zeala..