Survey ID Number
AFG_2018_SPA_v01_M
Title
Service Provision Assessment Survey 2018-2019
Data Collection Notes
Data collection was carried out from November 1, 2018, through January 20, 2019, in the seven provinces of Afghanistan, namely Kabul, Nangarhar, Paktya, Kunduz, Balkh, Kandahar, and Herat.
The Facility Inventory, Health Provider, and country-specific questionnaires (emergency services and inpatient care units, surgical and delivery services), and the exit questionnaires, were loaded onto tablet computers, which were used during interviews to ask questions and record responses (via CAPI). The client observation questionnaires (ANC, family planning, sick child, and institutional delivery) were first administered as paper-based questionnaires and later entered in the tablets (via CAFE).
Each AfSPA team was provided four tablet computers. One tablet was dedicated to CAPI for the Facility Inventory Questionnaire, the second tablet was dedicated to Inpatient Hospital Service questionnaires, the third was used to record the responses from CAPI exit interviews and CAFE client observation questionnaires (i.e., for entering and editing data from the paper-based observation protocols), and the fourth one was used for the Health Provider Questionnaire. The fourth tablet was also used for supervisor activities such as receiving completed data from other tablets, reviewing raw data, notes, and other responses, merging data and checking duplicates, checking ID structure, running field editing, and closing the facility and final backup.
Each team was given a list of facilities to visit, names and types of facilities, and the permission letter from the MoPH. At the beginning of fieldwork in a province, the teams were asked to coordinate with the provincial health office and prepare a schedule for visiting the targeted facilities. Data collection required 1 to 4, even 5 days, per facility depending on the type of facility. Interviewers ensured that respondents to the various sections of the Facility Inventory Questionnaire were the most knowledgeable persons with respect to the particular service or system components being assessed.
Every effort was made to ensure that teams visited facilities on days and at the time of the day when ANC, family planning, or sick child services would be offered, since the assessment involved observation of these consultations. Whenever a service of interest was not being offered on the day of the visit, the teams returned on a day when the service was offered to observe consultations and interview clients. If the service was offered on the day of the visit, but no clients came in for the service, the team did not revisit the facility.
One master trainer was assigned for each team to continuously coordinate the team member and supervise the fieldwork. Close contact between the AfSPA central office and the teams was also maintained through master trainers using Internet-based communication group.