[Principal requirements in medical training for certification of deaths in Spain].
OBJECTIVE
To know the training need priorities in Spanish physicians in death certification.


METHODS
Study of needs by consensus technique Delphi.


METHODS
Health care and medical-legal institutions in Spain.


METHODS
Physicians who ask for information in death certification, after reading an article in a medical magazine (n=38), and agree to participate (n=33).


METHODS
Priorities were established by means of a list of items, based on teaching experience and professional advice. The scores obtained for each priority were hierarchized, and the participants professional profiles were described. An analysis of hierarchical clusters was done to determine profiles of training.


RESULTS
The median age of the participants was 42 years, with 18 years experience in general/family, emergency or forensic medicine, which usually certified in median 8 death a year (rank from 0 to 50). The maximum training priorities were how to register a death and which doctor should make out the official documents. Intermediate priorities included the role of doctors in violent or accidental deaths. In the main three grouping needs were, in one, include certification as a degree subject and learn how different documents are made out; although in the others two, were how to register a death, which physician make out the documents, and when it should certify the family doctor and when the coroner.


CONCLUSIONS
The priorities in certification training are how to register a death and who should make out the documents, pointing out that the shortcoming continues in medical training in death certification.
Cirera Suárez
L
L
Servicio de Epidemiología, Dirección General de Salud Pública, Consejería de Sanidad y Consumo, Murcia, Spain.
Navarro Sánchez
C
C
Barber Vallés
X
X
Contreras Gil
J
J
Martínez López
C
C
García Rodríguez
J
J
D000328:Adult; D003644:Death Certificates; D004501:Education, Medical / Q000592:standards*; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D020380:Needs Assessment; D013030:Spain