Osteoarthritis Incidence and Trends in Administrative Health Records from British Columbia, Canada

OBJECTIVE: To calculate the incidence rates of osteoarthritis (OA) and to describe the changes in incidence using 18 years of administrative health records. METHODS: We analyzed visits to health professionals and hospital admission records in a random sample (n = 640,000) from British Columbia, Canada, from 1991/1992 through 2008/2009. OA was defined in 2 ways: (1) at least 1 physician diagnosis or 1 hospital admission; and (2) at least 2 physician diagnoses in 2 years or 1 hospital admission. Crude and age-standardized rates were calculated, and the annual relative changes were estimated from the Poisson regression models. RESULTS: In 2008/2009, the overall crude incidence rate (95% CI) of OA using definition 1 was 14.6 (14.0-14.8); [12.5 (12.0-13.0) among men and 16.3 (15.8-16.8) among women] per 1000 person-years. The rates were lower by about 44% under definition 2. For the period 2000/2001-2008/2009, crude incidence rates based on definition 1 varied from 11.8 to 14.2 per 1000 person-years for men, and from 15.7 to 18.5 for women. Annually, on average, crude rates rose by about 2.5-3.3% for both men and women. The age-adjusted rates increased by 0.6-0.8% among men and showed no trend among women. CONCLUSION: Our study generated updated incidence rates of administrative OA for the Province of British Columbia. Physician-diagnosed overall incidence rates of OA varied with the case definitions used; however, trends were similar in both case definitions. Age-adjusted rates among men increased slightly during the period 2000/2001-2008/2009. These findings have implications for projecting future prevalence and costs of OA.