Subnotificação de óbitos ao sistema de informações sobre mortalidade na macrorregião nordeste de minas gerais no ano de 2007

Abstract

Objective: To review the scientific literature on the Mortality Information System of the Ministry of Health and underreporting of deaths. Methodology: We consulted the bibliographic databases MEDLINE, LILACS, SCIELO, SUS Epidemiological Report, Epidemiology and Health Services and the Ministry of Health publications available on its website. The period selected for this review was from 1975 to 2010. We used the following keywords: information systems, underreporting, under-registration, vital statistics, reliability, quality, evaluation always associated with the term mortality. Results: Were found in total 1868 publications considering all the databases and search using the keywords above. Of this total, were read the abstracts of 138 articles and selected 74 for full reading articles, because they have relevance to the topic of research. Some articles deal with the underreporting of deaths, and issues related to it, such as the social, economical, access to health services, as well as characteristics related to the person such as sex, age (infant deaths and elderly deaths) and race. Other publications deal with the underreporting of fetal deaths, maternal or maternal causes, deaths whose underlying cause is poorly defined and deaths from labors´ accidents. Finally, some articles discussed factors that also contribute to underreporting of deaths and propose measures that might improve the quality of information. Conclusions: Evaluation of Information Systems has fundamental importance for improving these. Trusted Information Systems, timely and quality data enables the analysis of health situation and interfere in decision-making by managers. Underreporting of deaths compromises the quality of information and therefore deserves attention and should be reduced to the maximum. Key Words: information systems, underreporting of deaths, quality of information, evaluation of information systems, Vital Statistics and mortality.