Tropical Doctor > Volume 39, Number 3 > Pp. 145-149

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Methods and Devices

Delivery room logbook – fact or fiction?

Shane Duffy MSc MRCOG   ^*    Moya Crangle RM MSc (DLSHTM)   

^* Royal Sussex County Hospital, Eastern Road, Brighton, BN2 5BE, UK; Society of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists of Canada, 780 Echo Drive, Ottawa, Ontario, KIS 5R7

Corresepondence to: Dr Shane Duffy, Royal Sussex County Hospital, Eastern Road, Brighton, BN2 5BE, UK Email: shane.duffy{at}bsuh.nhs.uk

The delivery room logbook entries of Gimbie Adventist Hospital for a period of one month were monitored and compared with the actual number of births recorded on a separate worksheet for that period. The implications of the missing data were reviewed. This data was compared to a previous audit of the same design. Eighty per cent of births were recorded during this one month period which reflected an improvement from 72% reported in a previous study. Underreporting resulted in discrepencies when calculating the number of births and signal functions such as caesarean section rates, blood transfusion, administration of parenteral anticonvulsants and removal of retained products. In turn, these discrepencies impact the calculation of process indicators of safe motherhood projects. The reliability of the delivery room logbook as the sole source of information to create health policy and to monitor and evaluate health programs is questionable.

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