Record Keeping and Health Service Mirrored by Data from Swedish Child Health Care Records

In order to study the completeness and accuracy of the recording of Child Health Care data, 212 randomly sampled records from all of Sweden were collected. The degree of completeness and accuracy was determined by scoring information from the records. The results showed that the recorded data lacked accuracy to a large extent, and completeness to a somewhat lesser extent. Information on the development of the child, especially speech and language development, but also psychomotor development, were the main areas lacking completeness. Health information, environmental conditions, behaviour, illnesses, accidents and evaluation of the neonatal period were also very poorly recorded. The results indicate that the records of the Child Health Care service do not constitute, in the respects studied, a complete and secure basis for clinical work, research, planning or evaluation of the quality of the health services.