The Norwegian Myocardial Infarction Registry was established in 2012. In her PhD thesis, Ragna Elisa Støre Govatsmark has studied its reliability and completeness.

MAIN RESULTS:

1. The interrater reliability of variables in the myocardial infarction registry is generally excellent.
2. Both the myocardial infarction registry and the Norwegian Patient Registry are complete and correct.
3. There are no large gender differences in the treatment of myocardial infarction.

THESIS DEFENCE:

Thesis: Acute myocardial infarction diagnosis in Norwegian health registers – Quality assessment and use in research.
Candidate: Ragna Elise Støre Govatsmark
Time: May 23, 2019 at 12:15
Place: St. Olavs Hospital, Medical Technical Research Center: Auditorium MTA
Link to university website (in Norwegian)

SUMMARY:

(1) The information in the Norwegian Myocardial Infarction Registry is generally reliable. Govatsmark and co-workers showed that similar information is registered when two different health care practitioners do the input.

The study is based on a representative selection of 280 patients registered in the myocardial infarction registry during 2013. A nurse received all the relevant information from the patients’ journals, and filled in the registry information that was already previously registered. There was excellent agreement for most variables, including date and time, medical history, investigations and treatments and medication at discharge. However, there was room for improvement on variables such as family history of cardiovascular disease, complications during hospital stay, and location of the infarction. Furthermore, the registry often missed information on time of symptom onset and the body mass index of the patients.

(2) Both the Norwegian Myocardial Infarction Registry and the Norwegian Patient Registry contain complete and correct information on acute myocardial infarction diagnosis. The registries are as complete and correct for women as for men, and there are no significant differences between patients of different age.

The completeness and correctness of the registries were compared with a gold-standard established by the researchers based on the patient’s troponin T values. The study includes nearly 5000 patients admitted to St. Olavs Hospital during the second half of 2012.

(3) There are few gender differences in the assessment, treatment, complications and survival following a heart attack in Norway. In STEMI patients, no relevant differences were found. However, in non-STEMI patients women were less likely than men to receive coronary angiography. The study includes 26 447 cases of myocardial infarction in 2013 and 2014.

REFERENCES:

(1) Govatsmark, R. E. S., Sneeggen, S., Karlsaune, H., Slørdahl, S. A., & Bønaa, K. H. (2016). Interrater reliability of a national acute myocardial infarction register. Clinical epidemiology, 8, 305.

(3) Jortveit, J., Govatsmark, R. E., Langørgen, J., Hole, T., Mannsverk, J., Olsen, S., Risøe, C., & Halvorsen, S. (2016). Gender differences in the assessment and treatment of myocardial infarction. Tidsskrift for den Norske laegeforening: tidsskrift for praktisk medicin, ny raekke, 136(14-15), 1215-1222.

(2) Govatsmark, R. E. S., Janszky, I., Slørdahl, S. A., Ebbing, M., Wiseth, R., Grenne, B., Vesterbekkmo, E., & Bønaa, K. H. (2018). Completeness and correctness of acute myocardial infarction diagnoses in a medical quality register and an administrative health register. Scandinavian journal of public health, 1403494818803256.