Improving the accuracy of death certification among secondary care physicians

ABSTRACT

To assess the impact of an educational intervention on the accuracy of death certification of secondary healthcare physicians in Bahrain. Secondary Health Care, Ministry of Health. Interventional study. Twenty-seven secondary healthcare physicians were invited to attend an interactive workshop about death certificate completion. They were asked to complete a death certificate based on a Case-scenario at the start and after the end of the workshop. The errors made by the physicians were compared before and after the intervention. Five [18.5%] physicians had some type of training about death certificate completion and 3 [11.1%] were aware of the death certificate completion guidelines. A highly significant [p<0.001] reduction in errors prior to the intervention and after was revealed, 25 [92.6%] errors versus 11 [40.7%]. The most frequent error was listing the mechanism but it markedly dropped to one-third following the workshop. The number of errors has declined after attending the workshop. Training physicians in death certificate completion would improve the accuracy of mortality statistics