Survey ID Number
LBR_2006_DHS_v01_M
Title
Demographic and Health Survey 2007
Questionnaires
Three questionnaires—a Household Questionnaire, a Women’s Questionnaire, and a Men’s Questionnaire—were used in the survey. The contents of these questionnaires were based on model questionnaires developed by the MEASURE DHS program.
In consultation with a group of stakeholders, LISGIS and Macro staff modified the DHS model questionnaires to reflect relevant issues in population, family planning, HIV/AIDS, and other health issues in Liberia. Given that there are dozens of local languages in Liberia, most of which have no accepted written script and are not taught in the schools, and given that English is widely spoken, it was decided not to attempt to translate the questionnaires into vernaculars. However, many of the questions were broken down into a simpler form of Liberian English that interviewers could use with respondents.
The Household Questionnaire was used to list all the usual members and visitors in the selected households. Some basic information was collected on the characteristics of each person listed, including age, sex, education, and relationship to the head of the household. The main purpose of the Household Questionnaire was to identify women and men who were eligible for the individual interview. The Household Questionnaire also collected information on characteristics of the household’s dwelling unit, such as the source of water, type of toilet facilities, materials used for the floor and roof of the house, ownership of various durable goods, and ownership and use of mosquito nets. In addition, this questionnaire was also used to record height and weight measurements of women age 15-49 years and of children under the age of 5 years and women’s and men’s consent to volunteer to give blood samples. The HIV testing procedures are described in detail in the next section.
The Women’s Questionnaire was used to collect information from all women age 15-49 years and covered the following topics:
- Background characteristics (education, residential history, media exposure, etc.)
- Reproductive history and child mortality
- Knowledge and use of family planning methods
- Fertility preferences
- Prenatal and delivery care
- Breastfeeding and infant feeding practices
- Vaccinations and childhood illnesses
- Marriage and sexual activity
- Woman’s work and husband’s background characteristics
- Infant and child feeding practices
- Awareness and behavior about HIV/AIDS and other STIs
- Adult mortality including maternal mortality.
The Women’s Questionnaire also included a series of questions to obtain information on women’s experience of domestic violence. These questions were administered to one woman per household. In households with two or more eligible women, special procedures were followed in order to ensure that there was random selection of the woman to be interviewed and that these questions were administered in privacy.
The Men’s Questionnaire collected similar information contained in the Woman’s Questionnaire, but was shorter because it did not contain questions on reproductive history, maternal and child health, nutrition, maternal mortality, or domestic violence.
All aspects of the LDHS data collection were pretested in July 2006. For the pretest, LISGIS recruited 19 people to attend the training, most of whom were LISGIS staff with a few from other organizations involved in the survey, e.g., the NACP. Training was held at the Liberia Bible Society for 11 days from June 20 through July 1. Twelve of the 19 participants were selected to implement the pretest interviewing. Two teams were formed for the pretest, each with one supervisor, three female interviewers. and two male interviewers. Each team covered one rural and one urban EA. Because the work was being done during the period of heavy rainfall, the rural areas selected were off a main paved road, about 1-2 hours’ drive from Monrovia, and the urban areas were both in Monrovia itself. Pretest interviewing took six days, from July 4 through July 9. In total, the teams completed interviews with 95 households, 82 women and 60 men, and collected 118 blood samples. The pretest resulted in deleting some questions and making modifications in others.