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The use of hospital discharge data for public health surveillance of guillain‐barré syndrome
Author(s) -
Koobatian Thomas J.,
Birkhead Guthrie S.,
Schramm Margaret M.,
Vogt Richard L.
Publication year - 1991
Publication title -
annals of neurology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 4.764
H-Index - 296
eISSN - 1531-8249
pISSN - 0364-5134
DOI - 10.1002/ana.410300418
Subject(s) - guillain barre syndrome , medicine , incidence (geometry) , hospital discharge , epidemiology , public health , pediatrics , population , emergency medicine , medical emergency , intensive care medicine , environmental health , pathology , physics , optics
The sensitivity of passive reporting of Guillain‐Barré syndrome (GBS) to the Vermont Department of Health from 1980 to 1985 was compared to that of computerized hospital discharge abstract data. Written hospital discharge summaries were reviewed for clinical data to validate the computerized abstracts. In all, 51 definite and probable cases of GBS were identified from hospital data during a period when only 4 cases (8%) had been reported to the health department through passive physician reporting. Based on the hospital data, the incidence of this syndrome in Vermont was 1.6/100,000 population/year. The incidence rate for males was 1.5 times that for females. No geographical or seasonal clustering of cases was found. These epidemiological features are consistent with previously published data on the syndrome and suggest that the incidence has not changed significantly in the past 10 years. Incidence rates for GBS based on passively reported cases markedly underestimate the true incidence rate. Although limited by the lack of timeliness for public health surveillance, computerized hospital discharge data are readily available in many states and may be more sensitive in detecting cases, compared to passive surveillance. They may be a useful tool for establishing baseline rates and examining longterm trends for selected acute diseases like GBS for which there are well‐established diagnostic criteria and that usually result in hospitalization.