Level of agreement between coding sources of percentage total body surface area burnt (%TBSA)

Health Inf Manag. 2011;40(1):21-4.

Abstract

The percentage of total body surface area burnt (%TBSA) is a critical measure of burn injury severity and a key predictor of burn injury outcome. This study evaluated the level of agreement between four sources of %TBSA using 120 cases identified through the Victorian State Trauma Registry. Expert clinician, ICD-10-AM, Abbreviated Injury Scale, and burns registry coding were compared using measures of agreement. There was near-perfect agreement (weighted Kappa statistic 0.81-1) between all sources of data, suggesting that ICD-10-AM is a valid source of %TBSA and use of ICD-10-AM codes could reduce the resource used by trauma and burns registries capturing this information.

MeSH terms

  • Body Surface Area*
  • Burn Units / statistics & numerical data
  • Burns / classification*
  • Clinical Coding / classification*
  • Clinical Coding / standards
  • Humans
  • Injury Severity Score
  • International Classification of Diseases / classification*
  • International Classification of Diseases / standards
  • Registries / statistics & numerical data
  • Reproducibility of Results
  • Trauma Severity Indices*
  • Victoria