Abstract

Death certificates, mortuary registries, hospital and police records are known to be data sources on injury fatalities. However, underreporting, misreporting and a lack of well-trained registers are some of the challenges faced by these systems. This study will describe the injury deaths reported in Qatar national vital statistics annual reports [NVSAR] and compare them with the national mortuary of the Hamad Medical Corporation [NMHMC] in Doha,Qatar.

This retrospective study extracted all injury deaths recorded in the NHMC and compared them with those in NVSAR, from 1 January 2007 to 31 December 2015. Characteristics of injury deaths included: age, sex, mechanism of injury and the proportionate contribution to all injury deaths.

The study extracted 20 870 deaths, from all causes, from NMHMC, from 1 Jan, 2007 to 31 Dec 2015. There was an annual average of 279 more deaths, from all causes; this trend was consistent throughout the study period. Of these deaths, 3391 (16.2%) were due to injuries in NMHMC, this differed significantly from NVSAR, with 4054 reported injury deaths [22.1%]. The difference between the reported injury deaths from the Mortuary and the NSVAR followed a sigmoidal curve, from 2007–2015 with a nadir in 2012 and a peak in 2015. Comparisons by mechanism of injury did not reveal a consistent pattern of difference. The average proportionate mortality [PM] from Mortuary pre-hospital injury deaths was 44.1% [range 21.5%–54.0%] while that for in-hospital deaths was 53.3% [range 46.2%–68.1%].

The differential reporting pattern of deaths between the NSVAR and NMHMC was unique for injury deaths, with more deaths reported in the NSVAR and opposite was for all-cause deaths. No relationship was noted when analyzed by mechanism of injury. Further analysis must be done to better elucidate the cause/s of these differences.