The medical death certificate: is it really well known?

Although death certificates (DCs) provide valuable health information that can help guide local health policies and priorities there is little information regarding the knowledge of physicians in training regarding this topic. This was a cross-sectional study conducted as a survey using an electronic questionnaire. Of 104 residents (80 female (76.9%) and 24 male) involved 56 responded to the questionnaire (53.84%) of which 76.8% were female. Nearly 80% of the participants had already participated in or witnessed the drafting of a death certificate. The participants encountered difficulties in drafting the medical death certificate in one third of the cases particularly concerning the causes of death. In our study 60.7% of the participants thought that the time of death to be noted on the certificate was the time of the ascertainment of death and not the presumed date of its occurrence. In light of our results it seems necessary to provide training focused on the death certificate.