Evaluation on quality of internet based reporting of brucellosis in China, 2005–2017

  Objective  To evaluate the quality of internet based reporting of brucellosis in China from 2005 to 2017, find out the main problems and propose measures for the improvement of the reporting quality in the future.

  Methods  From China Disease Prevention and Control Information System, the information about all the brucellosis case reporting cards from 2005 to 2017 were collected according to the final review date. The timeliness and accuracy of the reporting, and area, year and province specific differences in reporting quality were analyzed.

  Results  A total of 499 421 case cards of brucellosis were reported during this period with an average increase rate of 6.14%. The overall timely reporting rate was 95.97%, the timely reporting rate increased gradually from 61.90% in 2005 to 99.47% in 2017. The median interval between diagnosis and reporting was 0.08 d (1.92 h). The overall timely verifying rate was 99.41%, the timely verifying rate increased gradually from 95.25% in 2005 to 99.70% in 2017. The overall accuracy rate of the reporting cards was 99.86%, the accuracy rate increased with year and reached 100.00% during 2015–2017. Most case reporting cards were from northern China (98.22%), but the annual case reporting cards from southern China showed an increasing trend. There was some delay in the timely case reporting in northern China, and the timely verifying rate in southern China was slightly lower. Untimely and inaccurate reporting of brucellosis cases mainly occurred in provinces with high-incidences of brucellosis, such as Inner Mongolia, Shanxi, and Hebei.

  Conclusion  During 2005–2017, the quality of internet based reporting of brucellosis in China were improved obviously, resulting in better reflection of the epidemic trend of brucellosis in China, however, the problems of untimely and inaccurate reporting still existed, especially in northern China. It is necessary to conduct serial training on brucellosis reporting standards, strengthen the supervision of the reporting quality and optimize the reporting items in surveillance system to further improve the quality of the internet based brucellosis reporting in China.