Objective:The main purpose of our study was to subjectively assess the quality of a paediatric intensive care unit (PICU) database according to the Directory of Clinical Databases (DoCDat) criteria.
Design and setting:A survey was conducted between April 1 and June 15, 2018, among the Sainte Justine PICU research group.Population: Every member of this group whose research activity required the use of the database and/or who was involved in the development/validation of the database.
Interventions: None.Measurements and main results: All 10 research team members (one Information Technology specialist, one junior medical student, and eight clinician researchers) who used the high-resolution database fulfilled the survey (100% response rate).The median quality level of the Sainte Justine PICU database across all the 10 criteria was 3 (2-4), rated on a 1 (worst) to 4 (best) numeric scale. When compared with previously assessed databases through the DoCDat criteria, we found that the Sainte Justine PICU database performance was similar.
Conclusions:The PICU high-resolution database appeared of good quality when subjectively assessed by the DoCDat criteria. Further validation procedures are mandatory. We suggest that data quality assessment and validation procedures should be reported when creating a new database.
Rationale
High data quality is essential to ensure the validity of clinical and research inferences based on it. However, these data quality assessments are often missing even though these data are used in daily practice and research.
Aims and objectives
Our objective was to evaluate the data quality of our high‐resolution electronic database (HRDB) implemented in our paediatric intensive care unit (PICU).
Methods
We conducted a prospective validation study of a HRDB in a 32‐bed paediatric medical, surgical, and cardiac PICU in a tertiary care freestanding maternal‐child health centre in Canada. All patients admitted to the PICU with at least one vital sign monitored using a cardiorespiratory monitor connected to the central monitoring station.
Results
Between June 2017 and August 2018, data from 295 patient days were recorded from medical devices and 4645 data points were video recorded and compared to the corresponding data collected in the HRDB. Statistical analysis showed an excellent overall correlation (R2 = 1), accuracy (100%), agreement (bias = 0, limits of agreement = 0), completeness (2% missing data), and reliability (ICC = 1) between recorded and collected data within clinically significant pre‐defined limits of agreement. Divergent points could all be explained.
Conclusions
This prospective validation of a representative sample showed an excellent overall data quality.
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