Is it possible to collect medicalized data in Africa? An experience in the pediatrics service in the University Hospital in Yopougon, Abidjan, Ivory Coast.

The aim of this study is to demonstrate that it can be relevant to implement medicalized data in the African hospitals in order to establish morbidity statistics and economical evaluation. A retrospective survey has been carried out on 300 children hospitalized in the paediatrics service in the Yopougon University Hospital from January 1st to December 31st 1999. Data have been collected on forms similar to the ones used in France for discharge summaries. The file batching used for these 300 files is the French DRG named GHM: it shows that, once the files have been divided up in main categories(CMD), CMD 18 (infectious and parasitic diseases) amounts to nearly half of the stays (43.7%). Likewise, in the Case Mix, GHM 611 (others infectious or parasitic diseases) represents, with 38%, more than one third of the stays. The most frequent diagnosis is the B50.9, plasmodium falciparum malaria without precision, with 24.3% of the stays. The patients' stays are shorter than in France. But according to the quality of the collected data, the inadequacy of the tools used and the category of the patients taken into consideration, these results have to be interpreted with restriction. However, this survey shows that it is possible to collect medicalized data in the African hospitals. Other services should feel concerned and more appropriate classifications that would reckon with epidemiological specificities should be applied.