Underreporting of oral cleft cases: a descriptive study, western Paraná, 2015-2019.

OBJECTIVES

To verify whether there was underreporting of oral cleft cases on the Live Birth Information System (Sistema de Informações Sobre Nascidos Vivos, SINASC) in the 10th Paraná Health Region, analyzing agreement between SINASC data and those recorded at a referral center in the same health region, as well as to define average prevalence in the period 2015-2019.

METHODS

This is a descriptive and retrospective epidemiological study. Data were obtained from both databases according to International Classification of Diseases (10th revision) codes. The ratio between cases and live births in the same year and location was used as a frequency measure.

RESULTS

We analyzed 121 cases, 44 based on SINASC data and 77 based on referral center data. According to SINASC, the prevalence rate was 8.75 cases per 10,000 inhabitants, while according to the referral center it was 16.87 cases per 10,000 inhabitants, indicating 42.86% underreporting on SINASC. Regarding the analysis of oral cleft classification, 68.19% of cases had their cleft type determined on the SINASC.

CONCLUSION

The study demonstrated that, in the 10th Paraná Health Region, there was underreporting on SINASC of people born with oral clefts between 2015 and 2019. This could perhaps have been resolved if the data on the live birth certificate had been edited after birth when the cleft was detected.