The consistency rate of causes of Death in different components of child mortality Surveillance System in hospitals affiliated with the Shahrekord University of Medical Sciences

Background and aims: Child mortality Surveillance System is Iranian children mortality database nationwide and internationally. The aim of this study was to investigate one of the the most important features of data quality, i.e. Accuracy, through examining the consistency rate between the underlying mortality causes registered in the software and those extracted from medical records among children. Methods: This descriptive, analytical study was performed by census and the medical files of all 104 children aged 1-59 months died between March 21, 2013 and September 22, 2015 in six hospitals affiliated with the Shahrekord University of Medical Sciences were studied. The data were gathered by a researcher-developed questionnaire under supervision of a pediatrician. To investigate the consistency rate of mortality causes, chi-square and Fisher's Exact test and Kappa coefficient in SPSS was used. Results: The consistency rate between the mortality causes registered in the software and the underlying mortality causes extracted from the medical Records, and death certificate was 0.60 and 0.57, respectively. These consistency rates are considered moderate. The consistency rate between the underlying mortality causes recorded in the death certificates and the medical files was derived 0.84, considered an optimal level of consistency. Conclusion: According to the findings, it is essential to develop certain interventions such as training and requiring operators to be adequately tactful for recording underlying mortality causes with reference to death certificates and medical files, hiring operators who are knowledgeable about the international protocols of selection of mortality cause or planning for use of the underlying causes registered in the encoding unit of the software, and enhancing the software and accuracy of information elements registered in the software.