Validation study of women's reporting and recall of major obstetric complications treated at the Philippine General Hospital

Abstract

In settings where most births occur at home, collection of data on complications experienced around the time of delivery is often dependent on self-reported data, collected through individual interviews. This paper describes a study designed to validate interview data on obstetric complications by comparing women's responses with data extracted from their medical records. The major complications of hemorrhage, dystocia, sepsis, and eclampsia were the main focus of the study. The sample was drawn from women hospitalized for delivery in a Manila hospital within the past 4 years. The main goal of the study was to assist in development of a survey instrument to be used in a national sample survey of women in the Philippines. The best sensitivity and specificity, respectively, for combinations of questions on these four conditions were: for hemorrhage, 0.70 and 0.78; for dystocia, 0.69 and 0.97; for sepsis, 0.89 and 0.83; and for eclampsia, 0.44 and 0.96. There were no significant differences in the duration of the recall periods according to diagnosis.