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EVALUATION DESIGNAND METHODOLOGYwith data from other sources, and found tobe consistent.The presence of the evaluation team membersduring observations of home care visitsmay have affected the quality of the interactionsbetween the home care team and the patients.The quality of the monthly statistics onpatient numbers and visits was sometimesinconsistent. On checking a sample of the homecare record sheets with the monthly statisticalsummaries, some arithmetical errors werefound. One of the home care teams countedevery person they interacted with professionally(either a PLHA or merely someone inthe community requesting information ormedicines) as a "patient". Another team countedany professional interaction as a "visit". Theevaluation team attempted to correct theseanomalies, in collaboration with the Khana staffand home care co-ordinators. When the numberof patients and visits are averaged over 12months for the 10 teams it is estimated thatthese errors will amount to less than 5%.Finally, although the study explored impactrelated to improvements in a number of qualityof life indicators for PLHA and their families,no attempt was made to measure lifespanor health status of PLHA visited by homecare teams compared with those who did notreceive visits.pg 21