Research methodology: coding perceived morbidity in general practice—an evaluation of the read classification and the international classification of primary care (ICPC)
✍ Scribed by J. P. Connolly; H. McGavock; K. Wilson-Davis
- Publisher
- John Wiley and Sons
- Year
- 1997
- Tongue
- English
- Weight
- 101 KB
- Volume
- 6
- Category
- Article
- ISSN
- 1053-8569
No coin nor oath required. For personal study only.
✦ Synopsis
Objectives Ð To evaluate the Read Classi®cation and the International Classi®cation of Primary Care (ICPC).
Methods Ð The Read Classi®cation was used to code the diagnoses for 3474 patient encounters, in a pilot sample of three volunteer practices (11 general practitioners), and the ICPC was used to code 21,416 patient encounters in a strati®ed quota sample of 22 practices (59 general practitioners), in a survey aiming to relate prescribing to perceived diagnosis.
Results/Experience Ð The Read Classi®cation was found to be a detailed and exhaustive classi®cation of medical diagnoses, but it was more time consuming to use than the ICPC, due to the complexity of the classi®cation, the over-use of alpha characters compared to the ICPC, and the mixing of alpha characters with numeric digits within the codes. Encoding, decoding and statistical analysis were found to be more straightforward using the ICPC compared with the Read Classi®cation. The ICPC was found to be de®cient in 40 important diagnoses, and these are listed.
Conclusion Ð The Read Classi®cation was of limited value in this drug utilization survey, in that the design of the code reduced its utility in statistical analyses. The ICPC was an ecient code, which met the criteria of exclusiveness, usefulness and hierarchy. The classi®cation is not exhaustive enough to prevent loss of information as a result of coding, but the authors' amendments virtually eliminated this problem.