Evaluating the quality of evidence for diagnosing ischemic heart disease from verbal autopsy in Indonesia

Table 2 Distribution of each category of strength of evidence

Category	Criteria	Cases	Proportion
Strong	(1) Surgery for coronary heart disease (1%); (2) Terminal chest pain and two of: (A) Sudden death; (B) History of heart disease; (C) Medical diagnosis of heart disease3; (D) Terminal shortness of breath.	213	53%
Medium	(1) Terminal chest pain alone; (2) Sudden death AND either: (A) History of heart disease OR; (B) Medical diagnosis of heart disease; (3) Only medical diagnosis of heart disease.	87	22%
Weak	(1) Only history of heart disease; (2) Only symptomatic evidence (without chest pain): (A) Sudden death; (B) Hypertension; (C) Shortness of breath.	98	24.5%
Nil	No evidence for the cause of death.	2	0.5%
TOTAL		400	100

Medical diagnosis of heart disease³: (A) informed by health facility staff where treatment accessed during illness; or (B) recorded by local health centre physician with prior knowledge of medical condition of deceased.