title: Assessing the completeness of tuberculosis notification in a health district.
abstract: We have estimated the completeness of tuberculosis notification in Bolton health district by combining notification data with information from prescriptions issued by general practitioners and hospital admission data. From 1 January 1991 to 31 December 1993, 307 cases of tuberculosis were notified in Bolton. Thirty-four cases were identified using general practitioners' prescriptions: 27 of these had been notified between January 1991 and December 1993, and seven had not been notified during this period. Although prescriptions may be used as a marker for tuberculosis, they would not be an adequate alternative to notification of cases. One hundred and forty-eight cases of tuberculosis were identified between 1 October 1992 and 30 September 1993 by combining data from the three sources: 138 cases had been notified (93.2%), 28 identified from prescriptions (23.0%), and 54 identified from hospital data (36.5%).
authors.affiliation: Wigan and Bolton Health Authority.
authors.forename: M J
authors.initials: MJ
authors.lastname: Devine
authors.forename: R
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Aston
mesh_terms: D000995:Antitubercular Agents / Q000627:therapeutic use; D018563:Disease Notification / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D011307:Drug Prescriptions / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D004739:England / Q000453:epidemiology; D006760:Hospitalization / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D006801:Humans; D008498:Medical Record Linkage; D011159:Population Surveillance / Q000379:methods; D015203:Reproducibility of Results; D012189:Retrospective Studies; D014376:Tuberculosis / Q000188:drug therapy / Q000453:epidemiology*
chemical_list: D000995:Antitubercular Agents