Death certificates were analysed according to the basic cause of death. Out of the total number of deaths which had occured in Children Hospital (Florianópolis, SC, Brazil), 161 were considered valid for the purpose of this study. With the information obtained from the respective hospital file, the death certificates were filled out again, and then compared to the original ones. Agreement was observed in 60.2% of cases between the original death certificates and the re-filled ones, and Congenital Malformations gave the highest percentage of agreement (92.0). When frequency distribution by cause of death was studied in the original death certificates, the highest percentage appeared to be Infectious and Parasitic Diseases (21.0) and of those Enteritis accounted for 43,2%.
Mortality; Death certificates; Death