Medical Certification of Cause of Death  in a Tertiary Care Centre, A matter of  concern?

Dr Shilpa Lanjewar; Dr Sanjay Kubde

Volume : II, Issue : X, October - 2013

Medical Certification of Cause of Death in a Tertiary Care Centre, A matter of concern?

Dr Shilpa Lanjewar, Dr Sanjay Kubde

Abstract :

Background: Death certificate (DC) is an important and universally accepted epidemiological tool for assessing mortality statistics. Inadequacy and inaccuracy in them results in loss of essential information for formulation of vital statistics and allocation of public health resources. Objectives: To evaluate death certificates ( DCs) and death report forms for completeness, accuracy and signing authority and to suggest suitable recommendation for improving the reporting. Methodology: .All the deaths certificates, 229 with their respective death forms, obtained during Apr–June 2009 in the medical record section were analyzed for Accuracy, Completeness and Signing authority. Results: Amongst all DCs, 133(58.08%) of the death certificates were completely filled of which 110(82.7%) had accurate cause of death written while 23(17.29%) had inaccurately filled cause of death. Reasons for incompleteness were, incomplete personal data(73.62%) , lacking manner of death(23.16%),cause of death not mentioned because opinion was reserved(2.10%), DC not signed(1.05%). 80(34.93%) death report forms were incomplete in some or the other information. In 51.97% DCs, signing authorities were residents and amongst them maximum signing authorities were Junior Residents–3. In some (17.29%) of the certificates, part 2 was kept vacant and the conditions were falsely included as antecedent cause. Study recommends that all DCs should be filled responsibly by trained a person without using abeviations