Recording errors in conventional electrocardiography in clinical practice in Duhok City, Iraq

Abstract EN

Background and objectives The 12-lead electrocardiogram is a useful tool to record and analyze the electrical activity of the heart.

If correct recording procedure and high quality standards are not assured, registration mistakes may lead to potentially serious diagnostic errors.

As far as we know, this subject has not been studied in Kurdistan Region of Iraq.

This study was conducted to investigate the electrocardiographic recording er-rors in clinical practice in Duhok City..

Methods Data were collected from January 20 to May 31, 2011.

A cross-sectional design was adopted to assess electrocardiogram records at Azadi Hospital, Zanest Family Medicine Center, and private clinics in Duhok City.

All records were assessed for types of errors in accordance with predefined assessment criteria.

Results The total number of recording errors was 6858, which constituted around one fifth (20.8%) of the maximum possible number of errors (33,000).

Most major errors were seen at Azadi Hospital (3.3%), followed by private clinics and Zanest Center (2.4% and 1%, respectively).

Minor non-technical errors in private clinics (17.2%) were almost double those of Azadi Hospital and Zanest Center.

About one third (34.2%) of the total number of records contained at least one major error, 75% contained at least one minor technical error and almost all records (98%) contained at least one minor non-technical error.

Conclusions Electrocardiographic recording errors are a problem in the three sectors of clinical practice in Duhok City, more so in the governmental institutions.

Immediate and decisive measures should be put into action to prevent potentially serious sequelae.