• Payal Singh, Divya Khanna, Priyanka Sharma, Yagnik Vaza, Akash Anand, Atul Madhukar Budukh, Pankaj Chaturvedi, and Satyajit Pradhan.
• Varanasi Cancer Registry, Mahamana Pandit Madan Mohan Malaviya Cancer Centre and Homi Bhabha Cancer Hospital, Tata Memorial Centre, Varanasi, Uttar Pradesh, India.
• Indian J Med Res. 2024 Jul 1; 160 (1): 112111-21.

AbstractMedical certification of the cause of death provides epidemiological information for developing cause-specific mortality and disease trends, guiding the monitoring of health programmes and allocating health resources. Therefore, providing correct information on the cause of death is essential. This study describes the errors in medical certification of the cause of death in India. We conducted a scoping review through a systematic inquiry in four databases, PubMed, ProQuest, Google Scholar and EBSCO, for all published articles reporting errors in medical certification of cause of death in India between December 31, 1998 and December 31, 2020. The review outcomes were the proportion of major and minor certification errors reported. Out of 135 screened studies, 20 were included based on the eligibility criteria. We observed a high proportion of certification errors and a large proportion of variation. Major certification errors were in the form of incorrect underlying cause of death (8.5-99.2%) and incorrect chain of events leading to death (12-64.7%). Minor certification errors in the form of missing clerical details, abbreviations and illegible handwriting were 0.3-100 per cent. The proportion of incomplete death certificates ranged between 12-100 per cent. Absence of time intervals was the most common type of certification error (62.3-99.5%). Training of doctors to accurately certify the medical cause of death and its addition to medical education is urgently needed to ensure accurate information for mortality-related statistics. A uniform methodology for auditing and reporting errors in medical certification of cause of death should be adopted.

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