[Efficacy of an informative seminar on the certification of causes of death].

BACKGROUND

Mortality statistics are of crucial importance in decision making from the point of view of Public Health Studies conducted on the reliability of such statistics have disclosed errors or biases, some of which may be avoided and/or reduced with information and training. The aim of the present work was to evaluate the efficacy of an informative seminar, received by pregraduate students, about the certification of causes of death in improving the formal quality of such statistics, thus increasing their reliability.

METHODS

A total of 175 students in the 6th year of their medical studies participated voluntarily in the Seminar. The students first made 6 certifications of death by different causes, then received a theoretical session, and finally made a further 6 certifications of death in a new test.

RESULTS

The results obtained point to an improvement in the set of indicators employed in the evaluation of the quality of the certifications of death.

CONCLUSION

The informative seminar mode is proposed as a method to be used in the training of health personnel in mortality statistics.