Abstract

SANTO, Augusto Hasiak. Quality evaluation of the coding of causes of death in the State of São Paulo, Brazil. Inf. Epidemiol. Sus [online]. 2000, vol.9, n.3, pp.189-198. ISSN 0104-1673.  http://dx.doi.org/10.5123/S0104-16732000000300004.

This study evaluated the medical coding quality of causes of death for the compilation of mortality statistics by the ACME System (acronym for Automated Classification of Medical Entities) used by the Fundação Sistema Estadual de Análise de Dados, in the State of São Paulo, Brazil. The study data was obtained by systematic sampling of 3,313 death certificates, corresponding to 1.6% of the total deaths reported in 1992. The revision of the coding of the causes of death was done by a dependent verifier based on the International Classification of Diseases and on the instruction of the ACME System manuals. A total of 179 errors were identified of which, 116 were related to the underlying cause and 63, to the associated causes of death. The proportion of errors for the underlying cause of death was of 3.5%, considering the total sampled number of death certificates. The proportion of errors for multiple causes was of 1.9%, considering 9,272 codes processed in the death certificates that were analyzed. The chapters of the International Classification of Diseases and the age groups that concentrated the majority of the errors were identified. It was noticed that several errors might be prevented and the introduction of a quality control program for the coding of causes of death for the Mortality Information System of Brazil is recommended.

Keywords : Causes of Death; Nosology; Classification; Quality Control; Validity; Automatic Processing of Causes of Death; Theory of Errors.

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