Performance of physician-certified verbal autopsies: multisite validation study using clinical diagnostic gold standards.

ABSTRACT:

Background

Physician review of a verbal autopsy (VA) and completion of a death certificate remains the most widely used approach for VA analysis. This study provides new evidence about the performance of physician-certified verbal autopsy (PCVA) using defined clinical diagnostic criteria as a gold standard for a multisite sample of 12,542 VAs. The study was also designed to analyze issues related to PCVA, such as the impact of a second physician reader on the cause of death assigned, the variation in performance with and without household recall of health care experience (HCE), and the importance of local information for physicians reading VAs.

Methods

The certification was performed by 24 physicians. The assignment of VA was random and blinded. Each VA was certified by one

SUBMITTER: Lozano R 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC3160925 | biostudies-literature | 2011 Aug

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature