Maternity care survey 2018: technical report

5. Data Entry and Fieldwork Quality Control

Data Capture

Online responses were captured automatically and telephone completions were captured by the helpline team. Paper responses were logged and scanned on a daily basis by staff at Quality Health Ltd. A verification process was then carried out for each batch scanned and a number of integrity checks were undertaken to ensure the scanning process had worked correctly and all data had been captured as expected.

Data from online questionnaires and telephone completions are automatically stored alongside the data from the paper questionnaires, and held separately from the names and addresses of people who were sampled for the survey.

For a short time during survey fieldwork, an error with the online survey led to responses to the first four questions not being saved for 15 individuals. Their responses to all other questions were saved and have been included in the analysis.

Verification and Upload Process

Once captured, all data are checked in house by Quality Health Ltd according to pre-set verification rules, by staff who have been given training and detailed instructions about the survey. The data entry system ensured that only valid answer codes for each question could be entered and that the correct data appeared in each field.  Other checks included ensuring that numeric data was in the correct format and that fields were not truncated in error. Once the survey responses were transferred to SG statisticians, further validation checks were run on the data to ensure data integrity was maintained.

Secure Disposal

Names and addresses of people who were selected for the survey were stored securely by Quality Health Ltd until the end of the fieldwork period, at which point they were destroyed. 

Once processed, all returned questionnaires were immediately stored by Quality Health Ltd in labelled containers and archived in a secure room on-site until they reach their agreed destruction date, when a certificate of destruction will be provided. 

Free Text Comments

The survey asked respondents if there was anything else that they would like to tell us about their experiences of various aspects of their maternity care. Around 1,400 respondents left at least one comment. Analysis of these comments will be carried out and reported separately from the national results.

Disclosive details that could be used to identify people – such as names, addresses, medical conditions – were suppressed when the comments were entered by staff at Quality Health Ltd. Quality checks were undertaken on records to ensure that the instructions for suppressing disclosive details were followed.