While the reporting system of death cases in Thailand looks working properly at the national level, there still is a problem that "unknown causes of death" amount to half of the total number of deaths. For improving the quality of the system, the situation of registration at a local level needs to be analyzed. In Khonkaen province, one of the major provinces in the northeast Thailand, copies of deathregistration were summarized by the Provincial Health Office. In the present research, data inJanuary (dry season) and July (rainy season) in 1996 were investigated. The total number ofdeath reports was 1, 632 (976 males, 619 females and 37 unknown gender) for the two months . The two months being compared, there was no significant difference in terms of sex ratio.The average age at death was 53.9 years as a whole. The average age of males was 49.7 yearsand that of females was 60.6 years, showing about 10 years difference. It was 1, 607 examples that their places of death were mentioned: 1, 000 (62.4%) at home, 541 (33.8%) in medical facilities and 66 (4.1%) in other places, mostly outside, which includedunexpected accidents such as traffic accidents.Deaths at home amounted to almost two thirds of the entire death cases. Of the total number of 1, 461 cases, only 601 (41.1 %) were attached with death certificates; there were 860death reports (58.9%) without medical certificate. In 974 cases which received medical care before death, 506 (52.0%) died in hospitals and456 (46.8%) died at home. Almost all the cases (99.2%) for deaths in medical facilities wereattached with death certificates. However, up to 95.7% of persons who once received medicaltreatment but eventually died at home were not attached with death certificates . In addition, 390 cases (90.1 %) in the group who did not have medical treatment before death died at home . It is necessary to extend opportunities of medical services to elder people. But, even if medial services became available, it is not enough just to increase access to medical services, con sidering that only half of the people eventually received medical certificates.
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