Data collection:
Sixty (30 male and 30 female) Health Hygiene Promoters of Department of Health were engaged to collect data using a structured questionnaire. The health promoters were already trained on Covid-19 and were experienced social mobilizers with the equivalent qualification. Orientation was provided on the questionnaire and data collection on April 16, 2020. The health promoters were facilitated by 30 team leaders for logistical and operational needs. Five district managers supervised data collection in the field while the data entry was supervised by the district Management Information System (MIS) assistant.
The questionnaire was designed to capture data on demographics (age, gender, education, address of respondents), the knowledge (symptoms, test, prevention, mode of spread, management and source of information) and attitude (preventable or not) related to the COVID19. Field demonstration was arranged, questionnaire was field tested on 17th April and fine-tuned.
A total of 30 teams were deployed for field data collection. Each team comprised a team leader, one male interviewer and one female interviewer. Teams were provided with appropriate personal protective equipment (PPE) including face masks, hand sanitizers and gloves for the field days. Masks were also provided for the respondents and it was ensured that teams observe social distancing measures during interviews.
Each team had to conduct 8 face to face interviews per day in 30 different settlements. On average, 240 interviews were completed per day; men and boys were interviewed by male interviewers whereas being a conservative society, women and girls were interviewed by female interviewers. In each category, first and fourth client coming to outreach session were chosen for interview. As such, a total of 1,227 interviews were completed in five days in 150 hamlets of five districts. Consent form was signed by each respondent before start of the interview.
Data entry was done daily by MIS assistant in each district. Both hard and soft copies were then transferred to provincial office of Director Health Services NMDs where provincial data analyst conducted 10 % quality check on the entries.