Pattern of Filling up of Medical Certification of Cause of Death (MCCD) at a Tertiary Care Hospital: Pitfalls and Suggestions

The statistics provided by the Medical Certification of Cause of Death-MCCD, plays an important role in deciding the direction of public health programs, provide a feedback system for future implementation of health policies, health planning and management of epidemiological studies, vital statistics, medicolegal investigations, census studies, health research, assessment of effectiveness of public health programs. Our study focuses on the analysis of MCCD proformas filled up by residents and faculty members and common mistakes committed while filling it. This was a retrospective, cross sectional study carried out at an 800 bedded hospital associated with a medical college situated in Madhya Pradesh. The period of this study is one calendar year in 2015 in which a total of 459 deaths were reported. We could study a total of 106 certificates (23%) as in rest of the cases, the MCCD was not attached. The analytical outcome of the study revealed some major errors like wrong proforma of MCCD and some minor errors. The conclusion of our study highlights an urgent need for imparting extra efforts towards awareness, importance to undergraduates as well as postgraduate training and regarding complete and accurate filling of the Medical Certification of Cause of Death proforma.