Observational studyBMC health services research2015
Errors in cause-of-death statement on death certificates in intensive care unit of Kathmandu, Nepal.
Observational study in BMC health services research, 2015. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 20 papers.
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Who cites it
20 citing papers in PubMed, 39 citations in OpenAlex.
- Institutionalizing medical certification of cause of death training: experiences and insights from seven countries.Global health action · 2026Article
- Quality of Medical Certification of Cause of Death in a City of Assam.Indian journal of community medicine : official publication of Indian Association of Preventive & Social Medicine · 2026Article
- Understanding Mortality Data: A Step-by-Step Guide to CDC WONDER, Joinpoint Analysis, and Forecasting Models.Journal of epidemiology and global health · 2026Review
- Assessment of errors in death certification and mortality patterns and trends among medical patients at Korle Bu Teaching Hospital, 2019-2023.Ghana medical journal · 2025Article
- Do Death Certificate Errors Decrease as Clinical Experience in an Emergency Department Increases?Journal of Korean medical science · 2024Article
- Determination of causes of adult deaths using minimally invasive tissue sampling in Gandaki province of Nepal: a multicenter hospital-based study.European journal of medical research · 2023Article
- Answering Big Questions in Pain Medicine.Cureus · 2023Review
- Estimation of national and subnational all-cause mortality indicators in Nepal, 2017.BMC public health · 2022Article
- Quality of death certificates completion for COVID-19 cases in the southeast of Iran: A cross-sectional study.Health science reports · 2022Article
- Factors Associated with Major Errors on Death Certificates.Healthcare (Basel, Switzerland) · 2022Article
- The knowledge assessment and reducing the errors of medical certificate of cause of death with sensitization training of physicians: A quality improvement intervention study.Journal of education and health promotion · 2022Article
- Medical Students' Knowledge of the Cause-of-Death Certification: A Descriptive, Cross-Sectional Study from Saudi Arabia.International journal of general medicine · 2021Article
- A review of completeness, correctness, and order of cause of death statements among decedents with documented causes of death and HIV status at two major mortuaries in Kenya, 2015.Journal of forensic and legal medicine · 2020Article
- Death Certification: Errors and Interventions.Clinical medicine & research · 2020Article
- Concordance between the underlying causes of death on death certificates written by three emergency physicians.Clinical and experimental emergency medicine · 2019Article
- Prevalence, Underlying Causes, and Preventability of Sepsis-Associated Mortality in US Acute Care Hospitals.JAMA network open · 2019Article
- The quality of medical death certification of cause of death in hospitals in rural Bangladesh: impact of introducing the International Form of Medical Certificate of Cause of Death.BMC health services research · 2017Article
- Animal-Encounter Fatalities, United States, 1999-2016: Cause of Death and Misreporting.Public health reports (Washington, D.C. : 1974)Article
- Adjusting Reported COVID-19 Deaths for the Prevailing Routine Death Surveillance in India.Frontiers in public healthArticle
- Does the Application of International Classification of Disease Codes for the Cause of Death on Death Certificates Reduce Garbage Codes?Inquiry : a journal of medical care organization, provision and financingArticle
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
4 authors at 3 institutions in 1 country.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
backgroundDeath certificates (DC) are one of the most important medico-legal documents that physicians work through. DCs are extensively used in health statistics for epidemiological studies, and in health policy planning as a public health resource tool. Cause-of-death (COD) statement, which is vulnerable to various errors, is the vital part of a DC that has the potential to mislead the policy makers and statisticians. Hence, we evaluated and analyzed the errors prevalent in COD statement of DC.
methodsA retrospective observational study was conducted at medical Intensive Care Unit (ICU) of Blue Cross Hospital, Kathmandu, Nepal within two years of study period. A total of 204 medical records of the deceased patients were reviewed. Three sub-headings of COD statement of DC- Part I Immediate COD (ICOD), Part I Underlying COD (UCOD), and Part II Other significant conditions (OSC) were extensively evaluated for the major medical errors.
resultsThe study found errors in 78.4 % of DCs. The highest number of errors was in UCOD (83 %). Most common errors were "Mechanism of Death- terminal event" in ICOD, "More than one competing causes" in UCOD, and "OSC present but not listed" in OSC. The error in DC was found to be statistically significant with the severity of sepsis (p = 0.003), and presence of chronic organ failures (p = 0.034). Age, time of death, source of admission, and duration of ICU stay were not found to be statistically associated with the errors in DC.
conclusionPrevalence of errors in DC was quite high. Most errors were committed in underlying cause of death, which is the most important part of DC. Complexity of the cases was the key factor that increased the risks of committing errors. Specific education should supersede general educational interventions to minimize the errors considerably in writing DC in complex cases.
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Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.