Assessment of the representativity of in-patient hospital diagnoses in the German Pharmacoepidemiological Research Database

Background: Claims data are an important source for health services research. Additionally to plausibility checks to identify errors in data processing and studies examining the validity of the data, it is important to assess the representativity of the data. Objectives: To assess the representativity of in patient hospital diagnoses in the German Pharmacoepidemiological Research Database (GePaRD). Methods: GePaRD consists of claims data from four German statutory health insurance (SHI) providers covering about 14 million insurants (approximately 17% of the German population). The analysis was based on data for…