Reliability of Causes of Death in Persons With Type I Diabetes

In order to investigate the reliability of death certificates & ICD-codes in determining the cause of specific mortality in persons with Type I diabetes, causes of death for 251 patients were assessed by a clinical review committee & compared to the information provided by death certificates & ICD-9 codes. The review committee considered suicide as the cause of death for 22 of the 251 patients. On 9 of the available 12 death certificates suicide was explicitly mentioned. However, only 7 of the 17 cases with ICD codes were classified as suicides by E-codes. (18 refs)