Quality of Reporting Data for Covid-19 Cases in Sfax (Tunisia) in 2020-2021

Abstract

Background: During the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic, a specific reporting system was set up in Tunisia to allow communication and timely follow-up of cases. These data are used among others to take public health measures to control this infection. However, effective decisions should be based on high quality data. Purpose: Our objective was to quantitatively evaluate the quality of the data of COVID-19 cases reporting in Sfax from March 2020 to June 2021. Methods: This is a cross-sectional, descriptive study that refers to the data collected in the reporting of covid-19 patients. Three quality attributes were studied, availability, promptness or punctuality and completeness. The source of the data was the Case Report Forms (CRFs) developed by the National Office of New and Emerging Diseases (ONMNE) collected mainly by telephone. A sample of 384 CRFs was selected by systematic random sampling. Findings: Only 29% of the MSDSs (15972) were available compared to the expected ones (38852). As for punctuality, 23% (n=87) were received at the surveillance cell within 48 hours of case confirmation. On the other hand, they reveal that the information recorded in the MSDS by the interveners was globally very insufficient and or illegible, especially the identification of the reporter and the contacts of the patients with scores of 53.9% and 43.9%. Overall, the quality of the data was judged “poor” in the majority of cases (72.13%). Conclusion: The present study revealed that our data reported during this pandemic are not timely and not satisfactory both quantitatively and qualitatively. We therefore recommend an evaluation of the entire communication system on a regular basis. Also, a mandatory training cycle for all primary care physicians and biologists in bio-statistics is necessary to better understand the usefulness of data collection, analysis and interpretation.