title: [Roaming through methodology. VI. Medical perspective on the causes of death].
abstract: The Central Statistics Office (CBS) annually publishes the causes of death of decreased Dutch residents. It is generally assumed that the registration of causes of death is unreliable and provides only limited additional information. It is a fact that the physicians who perform the post mortems may supply incomplete or incorrect information. Hence, individual causes of death are sometimes coded incorrectly. This necessitates specific instruction of medical students. For studies of large groups, misclassification of individual causes of death is of less importance. However, the systematics of the registration has to be taken into account. It is important that causes of death are registered uniformly facilitating (inter)national comparisons. With the aid of a causes of death register, characteristics of (groups of) the population can be related to the distribution of the causes of death; at the level of the individual patient the causes of death may afford insight into causes and effects of disease. The latter is possible by a temporary link of patient data with the individual causes of death.
authors.affiliation: Leids Universitair Medisch Centrum, afd. Klinische Epidemiologie, Leiden.
authors.forename: R G
authors.initials: RG
authors.lastname: Westendorp
mesh_terms: D002423:Cause of Death; D003627:Data Interpretation, Statistical; D003644:Death Certificates; D004812:Epidemiologic Methods; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D009426:Netherlands / Q000453:epidemiology; D012042:Registries / Q000592:standards; D012107:Research Design
vernacular_title: Dwalingen in de methodologie. VI. Doodsoorzaken in perspectief.