Assessing the representativeness of Canadian Hospitals Injury Reporting and Prevention Programme (CHIRPP) sport and recreational injury data in Calgary, Canada.

The objective of this study was to assess the representativeness of sport and recreational injury data from Canadian Hospital Injury Reporting and Prevention Programme (CHIRPP) in Calgary. Internal representativeness was assessed by comparing CHIRPP and regional health administrative data (ambulatory care classification system-ACCS) at Alberta Children's Hospital (ACH). External representativeness was assessed by comparing CHIRPP with ACCS at all hospitals. Comparisons were performed using descriptive statistics for top injury-producing sports and sports that produced severe injuries. Stratified distributions of injury-producing sports by gender, age group and severity of injury in CHIRPP and ACCS were compared. The proportion of all injuries in Calgary captured by CHIRPP was 64.8% (99%CI: 64.02-65.54%) (16,977/26,206). CHIRPP captured more cases of top injury-producing sports than ACCS at ACH. Rankings of top injury-producing sports in CHIRPP and ACCS at ACH were remarkably consistent (ρ  = 0.92, p < 0.0001). Rankings of top injury-producing sports in CHIRPP and ACCS at all hospitals were almost identical (ρ  = 0.98, p < 0.0001). Stratified distributions of top injury-producing sports by gender, age group and the severity of injury showed strong consistency between CHIRPP and ACCS. It is concluded that CHIRPP in Calgary provides a representative profile of injuries compared to regional health administrative data. This project supports the use of CHIRPP for establishing injury prevention priorities.