Validity of the Final Diagnosis in the Discharge Reports of Hospitalized Children at Boo-Ali Sina Teaching Hospital, Sari, Iran

Making an accurate clinical diagnosis can be a great challenge with pediatricians. We aimed to compare the initial diagnosis and final diagnosis for hospitalized children in one teaching hospital in Iran. In this cross-sectional study, patients’ clinical files were used. The relationship between variables was assessed by ANOVA and X2 statistical tests. The agreement rate between final and primary diagnosis was evaluated by Kappa coefficient. A total of 1310 patients’ hospital files were reviewed. There were 1244 (94.9%) cases with complete agreement, 12 (0.9%) with relatively agreement and 54 (4.2%) cases without agreement. The overall Kappa coefficient for primary and final diagnosis was 0.88. The agreement rate between primary and secondary diagnosis in this teaching hospital was high. This might be due to academic atmosphere in teaching children hospital