Quality Control of a Health Information System for Causes of Death Statistics in Burkina Faso Using Capture-Recapture Method.

INTRODUCTION: The information system on the causes of death (ISCD), set up in Burkina Faso in January 2014 at the University Hospital Center Souro Sanon (UHCSS) of Bobo-Dioulasso, was evaluated to assess its completeness in terms of death statistics generation.

METHOD: The capture-recapture method was used to assess this quality control using the three-sources technique.

RESULTS: The cross verification of the three data sources (mortuary, admission department, death certificate) gave the following estimations: number of deaths observed: 735, total estimated deaths: 852 [820-900], i.e. 86% of completeness achieved by the statistics generating system.

DISCUSSION: The ISCD is functional and produces easy-to-cross-check quality data. It could be extended to the entire country for the generation of mortality statistics. Nevertheless, it needs to be improved before deploying across the country.