TY - JOUR
T1 - Quantifying the validity of routine neonatal healthcare data in the Greater Accra Region, Ghana
AU - Kayode, Gbenga A.
AU - Amoakoh-Coleman, Mary
AU - Brown-Davies, Charles
AU - Grobbee, Diederick E.
AU - Agyepong, Irene Akua
AU - Ansah, Evelyn
AU - Klipstein-Grobusch, Kerstin
PY - 2014/8/21
Y1 - 2014/8/21
N2 - Objectives: The District Health Information Management System-2 (DHIMS-2) is the database for storing health service data in Ghana, and similar to other low and middle income countries, paper-based data collection is being used by the Ghana Health Service. As the DHIMS-2 database has not been validated before this study aimed to evaluate its validity. Methods: Seven out of ten districts in the Greater Accra Region were randomly sampled; the district hospital and a polyclinic in each district were recruited for validation. Seven pre-specified neonatal health indicators were considered for validation: antenatal registrants, deliveries, total births, live birth, stillbirth, low birthweight, and neonatal death. Data were extracted on these health indicators from the primary data (hospital paper-registers) recorded from January to March 2012. We examined all the data captured during this period as these data have been uploaded to the DHIMS-2 database. The differences between the values of the health indicators obtained from the primary data and that of the facility and DHIMS-2 database were used to assess the accuracy of the database while its completeness was estimated by the percentage of missing data in the primary data. Results: About 41,000 data were assessed and in almost all the districts, the error rates of the DHIMS-2 data were less than 2.1% while the percentages of missing data were below 2%. At the regional level, almost all the health indicators had an error rate below 1% while the overall error rate of the DHIMS-2 database was 0.68% (95% C I = 0.61-0.75) and the percentage of missing data was 3.1% (95% C I = 2.96-3.24). Conclusion: This study demonstrated that the percentage of missing data in the DHIMS-2 database was negligible while its accuracy was close to the acceptable range for high quality data.
AB - Objectives: The District Health Information Management System-2 (DHIMS-2) is the database for storing health service data in Ghana, and similar to other low and middle income countries, paper-based data collection is being used by the Ghana Health Service. As the DHIMS-2 database has not been validated before this study aimed to evaluate its validity. Methods: Seven out of ten districts in the Greater Accra Region were randomly sampled; the district hospital and a polyclinic in each district were recruited for validation. Seven pre-specified neonatal health indicators were considered for validation: antenatal registrants, deliveries, total births, live birth, stillbirth, low birthweight, and neonatal death. Data were extracted on these health indicators from the primary data (hospital paper-registers) recorded from January to March 2012. We examined all the data captured during this period as these data have been uploaded to the DHIMS-2 database. The differences between the values of the health indicators obtained from the primary data and that of the facility and DHIMS-2 database were used to assess the accuracy of the database while its completeness was estimated by the percentage of missing data in the primary data. Results: About 41,000 data were assessed and in almost all the districts, the error rates of the DHIMS-2 data were less than 2.1% while the percentages of missing data were below 2%. At the regional level, almost all the health indicators had an error rate below 1% while the overall error rate of the DHIMS-2 database was 0.68% (95% C I = 0.61-0.75) and the percentage of missing data was 3.1% (95% C I = 2.96-3.24). Conclusion: This study demonstrated that the percentage of missing data in the DHIMS-2 database was negligible while its accuracy was close to the acceptable range for high quality data.
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=84929056270&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1371/journal.pone.0104053
DO - 10.1371/journal.pone.0104053
M3 - Article
C2 - 25144222
AN - SCOPUS:84929056270
SN - 1932-6203
VL - 9
JO - PLoS ONE
JF - PLoS ONE
IS - 8
M1 - e104053
ER -