Verbal autopsy (cont.)
Activity
Let us revisit the flow diagram tracing the verbal autopsy process which you completed earlier in this session. Click on each of the boxes highlighted in red to reveal a question relating to that particular step in the process.
List 4 key factors which may influence the cause specific mortality fractions
In this session we discussed a number of different methodological factors around the verbal autopsy interviews which may affect the cause specific mortality fractions: the questionnaire design (type of questions/language/sub-group specific questionnaire); the timing of the interview relative to the death affect the recall of symptoms; the type of interviewer and; the type of respondent. This list is far from exhaustive and you may have thought of other factors which were not described in this session e.g. length of questionnaire or type of training offered to interviewers.
List 3 methods for interpreting data from verbal autopsy data:
There are three main methods for interpreting verbal autopsy data:
- Physician review
- Algorithms
- Probabilistic approaches
What is the main classification system which is adapted for categorising causes of death in verbal autopsy studies?
International Classification of Diseases (ICD).