Validation and validity of diagnoses in the General Practice Research Database: a systematic review

To investigate the range of methods used to validate diagnoses in the General Practice Research Database (GPRD), to summarize findings and to assess the quality of these validations.

A systematic literature review was performed by searching PubMed and Embase for publications using GPRD data published between 1987 and April 2008. Additional publications were identified from conference proceedings, back issues of relevant journals, bibliographies of retrieved publications and relevant websites. Publications that reported attempts to validate disease diagnoses recorded in the GPRD were included.