ACCURACY OF BIRTH CERTIFICATE DATA REGARDING THE AMOUNT, TIMING, AND ADEQUACY OF PRENATAL-CARE USING PRENATAL CLINIC MEDICAL RECORDS AS REFERENTS

This study compared birth certificate data on the amount, timing, and adequacy of prenatal care with the same data abstracted from the prena tal clinic records of 2,032 women who attended a health department pre natal clinic in northeast Georgia from 1980 to 1988. Overall accuracy was poor, Only 14.3%, (n = 291) of the records completely agreed on th e total number of visits, while approximately 36% (n = 738) and 53% (n = 1,081) agreed within one visit and two visits, respectively. Comple te agreement for month and trimester prenatal care began was 31.1% (n = 632) and 50.6% (n = 1,202), respectively, Because of the small geogr aphic region included in the current study, the generalizability of th ese findings to other populations may be limited.