Objectives: To assess the quality of health facility documentation related to maternal deaths at health facilities in Afghanistan.

Methods: Analysis of a subset of findings from the 2016 National Maternal and Newborn Health Quality of Care Assessment in Afghanistan. At each facility, maternity registers were reviewed to obtain data related to maternity caseload, and number and causes of maternal deaths in the year preceding the survey. Detailed chart reviews were conducted for up to three maternal deaths per facility. Analyses included completeness of charts, quality of documentation, and cause of death using WHO application of International Statistical Classification of Disease to deaths during pregnancy, childbirth and the puerperium.

Key findings: Only 129/226 (57%) of facilities had mortality registers available for review on the day of assessment and 41/226 (18%) had charts documenting maternal deaths during the previous year. We reviewed 68 maternal death cases from the 41 facilities. Cause of death was not recorded in nearly half of maternal death cases reviewed. Information regarding mode of birth was missing in over half of the charts, and one third did not capture gestational age at time of death. Hypertensive disorders of pregnancy and obstetric hemorrhage were the most common direct causes of death, followed by maternal sepsis and unanticipated complications of clinical management including anesthesia-related complications. Documented indirect causes of maternal deaths were anemia, cardiac arrest, kidney and hepatic failure. Charts revealed at least eight maternal deaths from indirect causes that were not captured in register books, indicating omission or misclassification of registered deaths.

Conclusion: Considerable gaps in quality of recordkeeping exist in Afghanistan, including underreporting, misclassification and incompleteness. This hampers efforts to improve quality of maternal and newborn health data and priority setting.