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Do GPs accurately record date of death? A UK observational analysis

Overview of attention for article published in BMJ Supportive & Palliative Care , June 2018
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  • In the top 25% of all research outputs scored by Altmetric
  • High Attention Score compared to outputs of the same age (80th percentile)
  • Above-average Attention Score compared to outputs of the same age and source (58th percentile)

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1 blog
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6 X users

Citations

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18 Dimensions

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41 Mendeley
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Title
Do GPs accurately record date of death? A UK observational analysis
Published in
BMJ Supportive & Palliative Care , June 2018
DOI 10.1136/bmjspcare-2018-001514
Pubmed ID
Authors

Amelia Harshfield, Gary A Abel, Stephen Barclay, Rupert A Payne

Abstract

To examine the concordance between dates of death recorded in UK primary care and national mortality records. UK primary care data from the Clinical Practice Research Datalink were linked to Office for National Statistics (ONS) data, for 118 571 patients who died between September 2010 and September 2015. Logistic regression was used to examine factors associated with discrepancy in death dates between data sets. Death dates matched in 76.8% of cases with primary care dates preceding ONS date in 2.9%, and following in 20.3% of cases; 92.2% of cases differed by <2 weeks. Primary care date was >4 weeks later than ONS in 1.5% of cases and occurred more frequently with deaths categorised as 'external' (15.8% vs 0.8% for cancer), and in younger patients (15.9% vs 1% for 18-29 and 80-89 years, respectively). General practices with the greatest discrepancies (97.5th percentile) had around 200 times higher odds of recording substantially discordant dates than practices with the lowest discrepancies (2.5th percentile). Dates of death in primary care records often disagree with national records and should be treated with caution. There is marked variation between practices, and studies involving young patients, unexplained deaths and where precise date of death is important are particularly vulnerable to these issues.

X Demographics

X Demographics

The data shown below were collected from the profiles of 6 X users who shared this research output. Click here to find out more about how the information was compiled.
Mendeley readers

Mendeley readers

The data shown below were compiled from readership statistics for 41 Mendeley readers of this research output. Click here to see the associated Mendeley record.

Geographical breakdown

Country Count As %
Unknown 41 100%

Demographic breakdown

Readers by professional status Count As %
Researcher 12 29%
Student > Ph. D. Student 5 12%
Student > Master 4 10%
Other 3 7%
Lecturer > Senior Lecturer 1 2%
Other 4 10%
Unknown 12 29%
Readers by discipline Count As %
Medicine and Dentistry 13 32%
Pharmacology, Toxicology and Pharmaceutical Science 3 7%
Nursing and Health Professions 2 5%
Economics, Econometrics and Finance 2 5%
Neuroscience 2 5%
Other 5 12%
Unknown 14 34%
Attention Score in Context

Attention Score in Context

This research output has an Altmetric Attention Score of 10. This is our high-level measure of the quality and quantity of online attention that it has received. This Attention Score, as well as the ranking and number of research outputs shown below, was calculated when the research output was last mentioned on 06 November 2020.
All research outputs
#3,551,804
of 25,385,509 outputs
Outputs from BMJ Supportive & Palliative Care
#512
of 1,849 outputs
Outputs of similar age
#67,423
of 342,755 outputs
Outputs of similar age from BMJ Supportive & Palliative Care
#7
of 17 outputs
Altmetric has tracked 25,385,509 research outputs across all sources so far. Compared to these this one has done well and is in the 85th percentile: it's in the top 25% of all research outputs ever tracked by Altmetric.
So far Altmetric has tracked 1,849 research outputs from this source. They typically receive a lot more attention than average, with a mean Attention Score of 11.0. This one has gotten more attention than average, scoring higher than 72% of its peers.
Older research outputs will score higher simply because they've had more time to accumulate mentions. To account for age we can compare this Altmetric Attention Score to the 342,755 tracked outputs that were published within six weeks on either side of this one in any source. This one has done well, scoring higher than 80% of its contemporaries.
We're also able to compare this research output to 17 others from the same source and published within six weeks on either side of this one. This one has gotten more attention than average, scoring higher than 58% of its contemporaries.