Compliance With Death Coding Rules of the International Classification of Diseases (10th Edition) in Death Certificates Issued in Chamran Hospital, Iran

Mortality information is one of the largest sources of health information about the community health and is a basis for planning, managing and evaluating the health sector in all countries. This study aims to measure the level of compliance of the death certificate issued in Chamran Hospital in Ferdous, Iran with death coding rules of the 10th edition of international classification of diseases (ICD-10).

This is a descriptive cross-sectional study using a researcher-made checklist. Data analysis was done in SPSS software, version 16 using descriptive statistics.

Out of 97 medical records, 9 were excluded due to lack of access to the death certificate. It was found out that 54.6% of the records were coded incorrectly and 31.1% had correct death coding. The most used ICD-10 rule for choosing the underlying cause of death was the general principle and the modifications rules A to F were the least used ones.

Only in 36.1% of the medical records of death cases in Chamran Hospital, there was a compliance with death coding rules of ICD-10 which is not favorable. Hospital managers can improve the coding status of death certificates by holding death coding workshops and applying strict rules for correct registration of certificates.