• Nuno V Gomes, Amar Polutak, Christian Schindler, Walter P Weber, Luzius A Steiner, Rachel Rosenthal, and Salome Dell-Kuster.
• Clinic for Anaesthesia, Intermediate Care, Prehospital Emergency Medicine and Pain Therapy, University Hospital Basel, Basel, Switzerland.
• Ann. Surg. 2023 Nov 1; 278 (5): e981e987e981-e987.

ObjectiveTo assess the discrepancy between perioperative complications, prospectively recorded during a cohort study versus retrospectively from health records.BackgroundPerioperative adverse events are relevant for patient outcome, but incomplete reporting is common.MethodsTwo physicians independently recorded all intraoperative adverse events according to ClassIntra and all postoperative complications according to the Clavien-Dindo classification based on all available health records. These retrospective assessments were compared with the number and severity of those prospectively assessed in the same patients during their inclusion in 1 center of a prospective multicenter cohort study.ResultsInterrater agreement between both physicians for retrospective recording was high [intraclass correlation coefficient: 0.89 (95% CI, 0.86, 0.91) for intraoperative and 0.88 (95% CI, 0.85, 0.90) for postoperative complications]. In 320 patients, the incidence rate was higher retrospectively than prospectively for any intraoperative complication (incidence rate ratio: 1.79; 95% CI, 1.50, 2.13) and for any postoperative complication (incidence rate ratio: 2.21; 95% CI, 1.90, 2.56). In 71 patients, the severity of the most severe intraoperative complication was higher in the retrospective than in the prospective data collection, whereas in 69 the grading was lower. In 106 patients, the severity of the most severe postoperative complication was higher in the retrospective than in the prospective data collection, whereas in 19 the grading was lower.ConclusionsThere is a noticeable discrepancy in the number and severity of reported perioperative complications between these 2 data collection methods. On the basis of the double-blinded assessment of 2 independent raters, our study renders prospective underreporting more likely than retrospective overreporting.Copyright © 2023 Wolters Kluwer Health, Inc. All rights reserved.

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