Registration completeness in the Norwegian Arthroplasty Register

Abstract

Introduction A high degree of registration completeness is necessary in order to obtain unbiased and accurate register-based study results. We investigated the completeness of registration in the national Norwegian Arthroplasty Register (NAR).Material and methods Registration completeness for the years 1999-2002 was calculated as a percentage, with the number of joint replacements reported to the NAR as numerator and those reported to the Norwegian Patient Register (NPR) as denominator. While the NAR received information directly from the orthopedic surgeons on a voluntary basis, the NPR, which is mandatory, received information from the electronic administrative patient records of the hospitals.Results Registration completeness in the NAR was 97% (97% for primary operations; 101% for revisions). Completeness was 98% (97%; 106%) for hip replacements, and for knee replacements it was 99% (99%; 97%). Hip and knee replacements represented 95% of all operations. However, completeness was poorer for less common joint replacements and poorest for ankle implants (82%; 40%) and wrist implants (52%; 14%). In the NAR, completeness of registration of revisions involving only removal of one or more prosthetic parts was lower than for exchange revisions for all types of joint replacement. For hip implants, 76% of the removal revisions (80% of Girdlestone procedures) were reported, and for knee implants the figure was 62%. According to NPR statistics, removal procedures accounted for 9% of all revisions of hip and knee replacements.Interpretation In the NAR, registration completeness of hip and knee replacements was high both for

A clinical and radiographic 13-year follow-up study of 138 Charnley hip arthroplasties in patients 50–70 years old: Comparison of university hospital data and registry data

“…This is comparable to results of a study from Stavanger, Norway, reporting that 0.4% of the primary hip replacements were missing in the registry data (Arthursson et al 2005). The completeness of reporting and quality of the data reported is considered good, and our study confirms a high degree of completeness of registration in the NAR (Espehaug et al 2006).…”

Risk of revision for infection in primary total hip and knee arthroplasty in patients with rheumatoid arthritis compared with osteoarthritis: A prospective, population‐based study on 108,786 hip and knee joint arthroplasties from the Norwegian Arthroplasty Register

“…Registration completeness regarding revisions involving only removal of prosthetic parts, performed predominantly in patients with a PJI, was lower than for exchange revisions. For hip replacements, up to 20% of the total removal revisions (Girdlestone procedures) were not reported (47,48). It is unlikely that this would have affected our survival curves, since there is no reason to believe the missing patients represent a different group of patients than those reported.…”

The risk of revision in total knee arthroplasty is not affected by previous high tibial osteotomy

“…The main strength of our study was the large database of the NAR with a high completeness of registration (Espehaug et al 2006, NAR 2014), enabling exclusions and adjustments for confounding factors.…”

“…However, the completeness of registration with a minimal dataset has been validated in registries, as has the accuracy of data (Espehaug et al 2006, SKAR 2013). The information on HTO prior to TKA has not been validated.…”