Validity and reliability of the Brazilian birth certificate for reporting birth defects. 2010

Daniela Varela Luquetti, and Rosalina Jorge Koifman
Post-graduation Program Environment and Public Health National School of Public Health, Oswaldo Cruz Foundation, Rio de Janeiro, RJ, Brazil. luquetti@uw.edu

OBJECTIVE We sought to assess data validity and coding reliability of birth defects among Brazilian birth certificates (BC). METHODS From a population of 27,945 live births delivered at 8 hospitals in 7 cities of Brazil during 2004, we compared 677 cases of birth defects identified through BC to 1,110 cases identified through a hospital-based birth defect registry. RESULTS Birth defects prevalence according to BC varied by hospital from 0.5% to 5.3%. Birth certificate sensitivity of birth defects reporting varied by hospital, from 11.4% to 66.5%. Specificity and positive and negative predictive values were above 80%. For reported cases, concordance of diagnosis was over 90% for all hospitals combined. Birth defects coding reliability, determined by kappa statistics, varied from 0.61 to 1.00 for 3-digit ICD-10 codes and 0.41 to 0.78 for 4-digit codes. CONCLUSIONS Birth certificate data underestimated birth defects prevalence among live births. Although concordance of diagnosis was high, the data should be used cautiously because of high underreporting and moderate coding reliability.

UI MeSH Term Description Entries
D012042 Registries The systems and processes involved in the establishment, support, management, and operation of registers, e.g., disease registers. Parish Registers,Population Register,Parish Register,Population Registers,Register, Parish,Register, Population,Registers, Parish,Registers, Population,Registry
D001719 Birth Certificates Official certifications by a physician recording the individual's birth date, place of birth, parentage and other required identifying data which are filed with the local registrar of vital statistics. Birth Records,Birth Certificate,Birth Record,Certificate, Birth,Certificates, Birth,Record, Birth,Records, Birth
D001938 Brazil A country located on the eastern coast of South America, located between Colombia and Peru, that borders the Atlantic Ocean. It is bordered on the north by Venezuela, Guyana, Suriname, and French Guiana, on the south by Uruguay, and on the west by Argentina. The capital is Brasilia.
D006801 Humans Members of the species Homo sapiens. Homo sapiens,Man (Taxonomy),Human,Man, Modern,Modern Man
D000013 Congenital Abnormalities Malformations of organs or body parts during development in utero. Birth Defects,Congenital Defects,Deformities,Fetal Anomalies,Fetal Malformations,Abnormalities, Congenital,Defects, Congenital,Abnormality, Congenital,Anomaly, Fetal,Birth Defect,Congenital Abnormality,Congenital Defect,Defect, Birth,Defect, Congenital,Deformity,Fetal Anomaly,Fetal Malformation,Malformation, Fetal
D015203 Reproducibility of Results The statistical reproducibility of measurements (often in a clinical context), including the testing of instrumentation or techniques to obtain reproducible results. The concept includes reproducibility of physiological measurements, which may be used to develop rules to assess probability or prognosis, or response to a stimulus; reproducibility of occurrence of a condition; and reproducibility of experimental results. Reliability and Validity,Reliability of Result,Reproducibility Of Result,Reproducibility of Finding,Validity of Result,Validity of Results,Face Validity,Reliability (Epidemiology),Reliability of Results,Reproducibility of Findings,Test-Retest Reliability,Validity (Epidemiology),Finding Reproducibilities,Finding Reproducibility,Of Result, Reproducibility,Of Results, Reproducibility,Reliabilities, Test-Retest,Reliability, Test-Retest,Result Reliabilities,Result Reliability,Result Validities,Result Validity,Result, Reproducibility Of,Results, Reproducibility Of,Test Retest Reliability,Validity and Reliability,Validity, Face
D015995 Prevalence The total number of cases of a given disease in a specified population at a designated time. It is differentiated from INCIDENCE, which refers to the number of new cases in the population at a given time. Period Prevalence,Point Prevalence,Period Prevalences,Point Prevalences,Prevalence, Period,Prevalence, Point,Prevalences
D016208 Databases, Factual Extensive collections, reputedly complete, of facts and data garnered from material of a specialized subject area and made available for analysis and application. The collection can be automated by various contemporary methods for retrieval. The concept should be differentiated from DATABASES, BIBLIOGRAPHIC which is restricted to collections of bibliographic references. Databanks, Factual,Data Banks, Factual,Data Bases, Factual,Data Bank, Factual,Data Base, Factual,Databank, Factual,Database, Factual,Factual Data Bank,Factual Data Banks,Factual Data Base,Factual Data Bases,Factual Databank,Factual Databanks,Factual Database,Factual Databases

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