Abstract

A perfect medical registry should contain a single complete accurate record for every registrable case occurring among the residents of the target population. In practice, this ideal can never be achieved. It is crucial to know the extent of inadequacy of data completeness and accuracy, as such data are increasingly used in clinical and epidemiological research and the validity of the results depends on the quality of the data. Data quality in disease registries is studied routinely and in special studies. This article presents a classification and literature review of different methods used in the study of data quality in medical registries.