[Reliability of diagnoses on authorization forms for hospital admission].

Objective: The reliability of the diagnoses given on forms authorizing Hospital Admittance (AIH), financed by the official Health System, was analysed during the period January through December, 1992, in Maringá-PR, Brazil.

Method: A systematic method was used to sample 1,595 medical records of the admittances to 8 general hospitals. The diagnoses registered in the medical records were compared to those registered in the corresponding AIH forms.

[Hospital morbidity in a county of Southern Brazil in 1992].

The distribution of the 2,518 admissions obtained in a sample taken from all the admissions which occurred in the eight general hospitals of the city of Maringá, State of Paraná, Brazil, in 1992 was analysed. The study variables were: main diagnosis, sex, age, city of residence, sources of financing, length of stay and discharge type. The leading causes of hospitalization were (ICD-9): complications of pregnancy, childbirth and puerperium and diseases of the respiratory and circulatory systems.

[An information system on live births and the use of its data in epidemiology and health statistics].

The Brazilian Ministry of Health implemented, in 1990, a System of Information of Live Births (SINASC) which introduced a Birth Certificate with a view to obtaining the total number of these events and their distribution according to epidemiological, demographic and clinical characteristics. It was decided to evaluate the System according to its coverage and the quality of information obtained, two years after its initial implementation. The population of this study consists of 15,142 hospital live births which occurred in five cities of the State of São Paulo, Brazil, in 1992.