Severe Maternal Morbidity: A Comparison of Definitions and Data Sources

Am J Epidemiol. 2021 Mar 23:kwab077. doi: 10.1093/aje/kwab077. Online ahead of print.ABSTRACTSevere maternal morbidity (SMM) is a composite outcome measure that indicates serious, potentially life-threatening maternal health problems. There is great interest in defining SMM using administrative data for surveillance and research. In the US, one common way of defining SMM at the population level is an index developed by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Modifications have been proposed to this index (e.g., excluding maternal transfusion); some research defines SMM using an index introduced by Bateman et al. Birth certificate data are also increasingly being used to define SMM. We compared commonly used US definitions of SMM to each other among all California births, 2007-2012, using the Kappa statistic and other measures. We also evaluated agreement between maternal morbidity fields on the birth certificate compared to claims data. Concordance was generally low between the 7 definitions of SMM analyzed (i.e., κ < 0.4 for 13 of 21 two-way comparisons), Low concordance was particularly driven by presence/absence of transfusion and claims data versus birth certificate definitions. Low agreement between administrative data-based definitions of SMM highlights that results can be expected to differ between them. Further research is needed on validity of SMM definitions, using more fine-grained data sources.PMID:33755046 | DOI:10.1093/aje/kwab077
Source: Am J Epidemiol - Category: Epidemiology Authors: Source Type: research