Strong development of research based on national quality registries in Sweden

The aim of the present paper is to describe how the use of national quality registries (NQRs) for research has evolved over the past decade in Sweden. All Swedish NQRs have reported their scientific activity (publications per year in peer-reviewed scientific journals) to the Swedish Association of Local Authorities and Regions since 2009, and the present report is based on available data from 2009–2016. The yearly number of publications of the 69 registries active in 2009 has increased from 121 to 496 in 2016. Seventeen of these registries published more than 10 papers in 2016; however, 12 NQRs did not publish any papers in 2016. An additional 77 papers were published in 2016 by the 34 NQRs started after 2009. In summary, there has been a strong development of quality registry-based research in Sweden over the last decade. However, there is still room for further increase of the use of research based on NQRs in Sweden.