RECORD LINKAGE IN A REGIONAL MENTAL-HEALTH PLANNING STUDY - ACCURACY OF UNIQUE IDENTIFIERS, RELIABILITY OF SOCIODEMOGRAPHICS, AND ESTIMATING IDENTIFICATION ERROR
Aj. Dalrymple et al., RECORD LINKAGE IN A REGIONAL MENTAL-HEALTH PLANNING STUDY - ACCURACY OF UNIQUE IDENTIFIERS, RELIABILITY OF SOCIODEMOGRAPHICS, AND ESTIMATING IDENTIFICATION ERROR, Journal of mental health administration, 21(2), 1994, pp. 185-192
Assembling information about individuals over time allows health manag
ers and researchers to describe the progression of diseases, the care
history of individuals and the sequences of care episodes that potenti
ally result in improving individuals' health status. However, current
mental health statistics generally focus on sets of events rather than
groups of individuals making it impossible to distinguish between two
different persons being admitted and the same person being admitted t
wice. Accurate figures on treatment prevalence cannot be generated and
multiservice users across time or across agencies will inflate the st
atistics used to plan needed services. The capacity to link consistent
ly defined bits of information together is critical to developing a re
liable information system. This article examines the adequacy of using
unique identifier codes to accomplish linkage by focusing on one exam
ple of record linkage that incorporates mental health information from
both community and institutional sectors in one region of Ontario, Ca
nada. Findings indicate that unique ''cradle to grave'' identifiers do
not guarantee accuracy if manual transcription is involved.