Quality of registration of antenatal, intrapartum, and newborn information in the Georgian birth registry.

BACKGROUND

The Georgian Birth Registry (GBR) is a comprehensive digital birth registry covering 99.8% of births nationwide. By law, registration in the GBR is mandatory, with data primarily transferred from medical records (MRs) by designated personnel at medical facilities. We aimed to assess the correspondence of the registration of selected variables between GBR and MRs.

METHODS

We randomly selected 1,044 women who gave birth in 2018. Data were extracted from the GBR on 27 variables related to pregnancy, childbirth, and the newborn and individually linked to the MRs. We specifically compared the agreement of dichotomous, ordinal, and date variables between the GBR and the MRs to assess the consistency of individual registrations.

RESULTS

Of the 27 dichotomous, ordinal, and date variables, 22 displayed more than 95% complete agreement with the information in the MRs. The prevalence of maternal morbidity registered in the MRs was lower than expected, while the proportion of fetuses with transverse lies was higher than expected.

CONCLUSIONS

Most antenatal, intrapartum, and newborn information registered in the GBR has satisfactory agreement with the MRs, with error typical for single data entry system. The lower-than-expected prevalence of gestational diabetes, preeclampsia, hypertensive disorders, and postpartum hemorrhage registered in the MRs, as well as the higher-than-expected prevalence of transverse fetal presentation, warrants in-depth investigation to ensure that the quality of care is satisfactory and to further improve registration in both the MRs and GBR. Therefore, our findings indicate that while the agreement between the GBR and MRs is generally high, MRs are sometimes incomplete or incorrect for certain conditions.