This is an important observation given that other studies use death certificates to estimate prevalence and for case finding....
J Neurol Sci. 2014 Oct 2. pii: S0022-510X(14)00644-3. doi: 10.1016/j.jns.2014.08.048. [Epub ahead of print]
Benito-León J, Louis ED, Villarejo-Galende A, Romero JP, Bermejo-Pareja F.
BACKGROUND:
Parkinson's disease is frequently omitted as a cause of death from death certificates. A limitation of previous studies that attempted to assess the validity of death certificates is that population-dwelling cases, with milder, undiagnosed Parkinson's disease were likely excluded. As a result, those studies likely overestimated the validity of death certificates because they did not include these milder cases. We assessed the validity of death certificates in a prospective population-based study (NEDICES), which includes previously undiagnosed Parkinson's disease cases detected during the assessment.
METHODS:
3926 community-dwelling elderly subjects with and without Parkinson's disease were followed during a median of 12.6years, after which the death certificates of those who died were examined. We calculated the proportion of cases of clinically diagnosed Parkinson's disease for whom a diagnosis of Parkinson's disease was certified as the basic cause of death on death certificates.
RESULTS:
1791 (45.6%) of the 3926 participants died over a median follow-up of 7.1years, including 82 (73.9%) deaths among 111 participants with Parkinson's disease. Parkinson's disease was rarely certified as the basic cause of death (14.6%). Gender, disease stage and the period during which the study was conducted (i.e., 1994 to 2007) did not influence the likelihood that Parkinson's disease would be reported.
CONCLUSIONS:
Our findings reinforce the notion that the reporting of Parkinson's disease on death certificates remains poor. This suggests a lack of awareness of the importance of Parkinson's disease as a cause of death.
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