Validation of verbal autopsy: determination of cause of deaths in Malaysia 2013

BMC Public Health

Table 2 Validation characteristics of Verbal Autopsy (VA) procedures for 15 leading causes of hospital deaths

Cause of deaths	Medical Record (MR) diagnosis	Verbal Autopsy (VA) diagnosis	Validation scores for VA
Cause of deaths	Medical Record (MR) diagnosis	Verbal Autopsy (VA) diagnosis	Sensitivity (95% CI)	PPV	CSMF changes in VA (%)^a
Ischaemic heart diseases	311	316	0.65 (0.60, 0.71)	0.64	1.6
Cerebrovascular diseases	282	236	0.60 (0.55, 0.66)	0.72	−16.3
Transport accidents	193	206	0.92 (0.88, 0.96)	0.86	6.7
Pneumonia	182	178	0.37 (0.30, 0.44)	0.38	−2.2
Diabetes mellitus	91	102	0.36 (0.26,0.46)	0.32	12.1
Chronic lower respiratory diseases	73	99	0.48 (0.36, 0.59)	0.35	35.6
Other heart diseases	48	65	0.21 (0.09, 0.32)	0.15	35.4
Renal failure	80	64	0.35 (0.25, 0.45)	0.44	−20.0
Other diseases of the digestive system	58	42	0.33 (0.21, 0.45)	0.73	−27.6
Other malignant neoplasms	60	41	0.38 (0.26.0.51)	0.45	−31.7
Respiratory tuberculosis	30	40	0.47 (0.29, 0.65)	0.56	33.3
Cancer of colon, rectum and anus	28	37	0.71 (0.55, 0.88)	0.35	32.1
Breast cancer	34	36	0.94 (0.86, 1.00)	0.54	5.9
Diseases of the liver	25	36	0.40 (0.21, 0.59)	0.89	44.0
All other causes	677	674
Total deaths	2172	2172

^aindicates the change in cause-specific mortality fractions (CSMF) from VA
Positive change indicates over diagnosis by VA; Negative change indicates under diagnosis by VA

ISSN: 1471-2458