Population and Family Health Survey 1997

PRETEST

The household and individual questionnaires were pretested in April and March 1997 in a number of urban and rural clusters outside of those selected for the actual survey. All senior staff members of the survey participated in this activity. The field staff for the pretest consisted of highly qualified and experienced female interviewers.

Pretest training, which lasted three weeks, included class discussions, role playing, and field practice. Staff from the MOHHC and the JFPPA were invited to give lectures on their respective areas of expertise. In addition, the pretest teams were trained to carry out supervisory tasks, since they were expected to act as supervisors or field editors during the main fieldwork. The pretest revealed some minor phrasing problems in the questionnaire, which were corrected.

RECRUITMENT AND TRAINING OF STAFF

Different supervisory and executive levels of survey staff members were recruited, according to certain criteria such as experience, educational and personal qualifications, and familiarity with geographic areas. Fieldworkers for the main survey were recruited from among those who participated in the 1994 census as well as those who took part in other demographic surveys conducted by the DOS. The interviewers were all highly qualified females. Supervisors and field editors were selected from those who participated in the pretest. They were retained by the DOS after the pretest to assist in sampling activities.

The training of interviewers, field editors, and supervisors for both the household and the individual questionnaires lasted three weeks, from May 10 to June 5, 1997. Six staff members versed in specific aspects pertaining to family planning, maternal health, child health, and AIDS, participated in this activity. Much of the training consisted of lectures on how to conduct the interviews and how to fill out the questionnaires. Practice interviewing was done in the third week of training. Staff from the MOHHC and the JFPPA were invited to speak on issues related to their activities.

MAIN FIELDWORK

The survey fieldwork was organized in such a way as to ensure control over field logistics by DOS field offices all over the country. The workload, the dispersion of sample units, and transportation facilities served as criteria for identifying the number of field staff in each area. Field staff consisted of five controllers (males), eight supervisors, eight field editors, and eight teams of five interviewers each. Fieldwork was carried out between June 7 and October 31, 1997.

To facilitate data collection, each interviewing team was assigned a number of blocks in the sample area. Each supervisor divided his team so as to ensure that all adjacent sampled households were completed by one interviewer. To ensure good data quality, interviewers were asked to conduct fewer interviews during the first three days of data collection. The questionnaires were spot-checked by the field editor and/or the supervisor. Errors were corrected by the interviewers, discussions with the editor or, in some cases, by callbacks to the respective households. To maintain consistency, information on common errors or unusual cases were passed to all supervisors in the area. The field editor and/or the supervisor conducted spot-checks by randomly visiting some sampled households and completing some parts of the same questionnaire (previously filled in by the interviewer). Both questionnaires were then matched and any differences were discussed. Interviewers made repeated attempts by calling back to interview eligible respondents who were not home at the time of the first visit or to persuade eligible women who were reluctant to be interviewed.