Completeness of notification of adult tuberculosis in Iasi County, Romania: a capture-recapture analysis.
METHODS
Iasi County, Romania.


OBJECTIVE
To assess the completeness of notification of adult tuberculosis (TB; age > or=15 years) in 2004.


METHODS
Record-linkage and capture-recapture analysis of three TB-related registers: a notification register, a laboratory register and a prescriptions register.


RESULTS
After record linkage, the observed completeness of the notification register was 86.4%, giving an observed adult TB incidence rate of 202 per 100,000 population. After capture-recapture analysis, internal validity analysis and application of alternative truncated population estimation models, the estimated completeness of the notification register was 82-85%, giving an estimated adult TB incidence rate of between 204 and 212/100,000.


CONCLUSIONS
This study shows that the severity of the TB problem in Iasi County is under-reported. The results are in agreement with a previous estimate of the undernotification of TB in Romania by the the World Health Organization.
Cojocaru
C
C
Pulmonary Disease Division, University of Medicine and Pharmacy Gr T Popa, Iasi, Romania. criscoj@mail.dntis.ro
van Hest
N A
NA
Mihaescu
T
T
Davies
P D
PD
D000328:Adult; D018563:Disease Notification / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D006801:Humans; D015994:Incidence; D016347:Medical Records Systems, Computerized; D015233:Models, Statistical; D011159:Population Surveillance; D040442:Public Health Informatics / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D012042:Registries; D012383:Romania / Q000453:epidemiology; D014376:Tuberculosis / Q000453:epidemiology*