Onojo Otowo’s Updates
Week 1 Assignment
Q1: List items currently missing from the questionnaire that are needed to achieve the stated survey objectives.
Answer:
- BCG vaccine
- IPV vaccine
- Sex of child
- Residence demography – Rural/Urban
- Residence address
- Birth order
- Literacy of caregiver
- Care giver recall information data capturing
Q2: List of questionnaire items currently unrelated to achieving the stated survey objectives.
Answer:
- Yellow fever vaccine
- Rota vaccine as it will be introduced this year in Harmonia
- Mobility questions form RI6
- Questions (RI118 – RI121) relating to abscess on form RI5
Q3: Recommend how to improve the alignment between questionnaire and the stated survey objectives.
Answer:
- Form RI2 should be reorganized to reflect the information (and order) on the vaccination cards in Harmonia
- Vaccination data by card and recall be placed side by side
- Reason for partial or no vaccination questions after vaccination data
Q4: What steps would you take to ensure that interviewers ask the questions in the same standardized manner?
Answer:
- Selection of interviewers from the health work force knowledgeable on EPI schedule
- Training of interviewers on IPC skills for them to be able get vaccination records from parents/caregivers and how to interpret evidence of vaccination
- Piloting/ field trial of the survey questionnaire
- Survey forms should be simple and may be translated into the local language
- National EPI schedule should be printed and attached to each questionnaire
- Explanatory notes for the questions been asked
- Questionnaire should be checked by the interviewer first, and later by the supervisor to ensure that they are filled correctly.
- Supportive supervision and monitoring
Q5: What factors may contribute to ascertainment bias in this survey?
Answer:
- Household selection - Selection bias
- Recall bias – Vaccination is misclassified by parents/caregivers as they are not able to give correct details
- Interviewers bias – interviewer may apply his own knowledge to fill the data when parents are not sure
- Social desirability bias - Providing true maternal recall, for reasons for no vaccination
- Information bias – inconsistent probing by interviewer for vaccination information recall
- Absence of respondents in the homes
- Non- availability of SOPs and instructions for each questionnaire
- Questionnaires have terms that are not understood by the respondents
- Lack of testing the questionnaires field and at the health facilities
- Poor quality of training
- Lack of cross checking the data before leaving the house