How to investigate Adherence to Antiretroviral Treatment ... - INRUD

Chapter 6. Planning and Field Methods
Space is needed for data collectors to sit down with the pile of records and extract the
relevant data. A separate room with one or two tables is ideal. All data collectors not
interviewing should be engaged in this. In all, 100 sets of patient records are needed. It may
be quicker to select 25 (or less) at a time so that data extractors do not have to wait while
records are being found.
Exit Interview
A location needs to be found and made comfortable and the dispenser needs to be briefed to
direct the relevant patients to the place for interviews. The exit interviews take about ten
minutes each, so depending on patient flow the appropriate number of interviewers will be
chosen. This will vary through the day. It may be that the pharmacist comes in late so there is
a queue of patients and a sudden rush when the pharmacist starts work. Careful adjustment to
this patient flow is needed. When no patients are available for interviewing, the data
collectors should concentrate on the retrospective data extraction.
Facility Interview
Once the sampling and record extraction process is working, the place and manner of exit
interviews has been established and the data collectors know and are settled in their different
roles the team leader can start on the facility interview. It should only take one or two hours
at most, so that the team leader should also do a fair share of retrospective data extraction.
Computer Entry
Once the process is underway and at least 70 retrospective records have been extracted, one
or two team members can start to enter the data on a computer. If this is the team leader, it
becomes a chance to make sure the data is entered sensibly and gives the opportunity to
ensure quality control and handling any problems that are encountered.
Check to make sure the dating systems of the collected data and the
data entry software are the same (i.e., dd/mm/yy)
There are two approaches to processing the data from an indicators’ study—manual
tabulation and computerized analysis. These adherence indicators have been designed so that
if the data is entered into spread sheets that look exactly like the manual data collection
sheets, then the indicators will be automatically calculated.
For accuracy, each form needs to be double-entered by two different people. The software
will highlight any disagreements which should be checked by the supervisor or team leader.
It is best to enter the data as soon as possible after collecting the data. If possible, include two
people in each team to enter the data at the time of data collection or in the evening of the day
of the data collection.
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