Assessment of medical certificate of cause of death at a tertiary care centre in Mumbai, India

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Original Article

Author Details : Pallavi Uplap, Deepak Wani*, Lalit Sankhe

Volume : 6, Issue : 2, Year : 2019

Article Page : 70-74

https://doi.org/10.18231/j.ijfcm.2019.017

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Abstract

Introduction: India, the second most populous country in the world shares proportionate global mortality with deficient mortality data. In view of limited literature about quality of cause of death data from our country, a study was undertaken to find out completeness of records of Medical Certificate of Cause of Death (MCCD) and to find out disparity between them and clinical records.
Materials and Methods: A Cross sectional record based study was conducted at a tertiary care hospital in Mumbai. Randomly selected 20% of records of the patients died after admission to the tertiary care hospital during calendar year of 2016 were included while medicolegal deaths were excluded. Demographic variables, variables related with cause of death were assessed for accuracy and administrative variables were added to these while assessing completeness. The study was conducted after obtaining Institutional Ethical Committee approval and data was analysed appropriately.
Result: All 410(100%) MCCD forms assessed were notably incomplete and inaccurate. Time interval between mortality causes and death was mentioned in 2(0.48%) certificates only and that was also inaccurate. Other major errors were mode of dying mentioned as an immediate or antecedent cause of death 353(86%) and 170(41%) respectively, multiple causes and use of short forms 229(56%) and 143(35%) respectively.
Conclusion: A sustainable training programme with inbuilt quality assurance mechanism for improving medical certification of cause of death at institutional level should be imparted.

Keywords: Medical Certificate of Cause of Death (MCCD), Assessment, India.

How to cite : Uplap P, Wani D, Sankhe L, Assessment of medical certificate of cause of death at a tertiary care centre in Mumbai, India. Indian J Forensic Community Med 2019;6(2):70-74

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