OH dear!

Well, it could have been avoided!

We realized yesterday that we had sent out our guys with half-questionnaires!

Only the front side had been copied. So this led to an obvious quality assurance measure being put in place where we check each single questionnaire before it goes out!

We had a very useful meeting about the obstacles and challenges the field - guys are encountering in the township as they do the work.

Mostly they encountered the difficulty of asking questions about HIV and Male circumcision to men older than themselves. The two men in the group who had the most success were the two oldest men. They also commented that the negotiation of the process of entering an interview was essential. All in all I believe just our conversation about this was a powerful peer learning opportunity for the whole group.

When we did an estimate of successful complete questionnaires vs refusals we came up with 8 people agreeing to do a questionnaire to 1 person refusing. This was also very encouraging.

In the office I did a re-training of our team to take on the dispensation and collection of questionnaires and calendars.

We are also working hard on our data-analysis software, starting with a spreadsheet just to capture the data.

So far so good!

A picture of our progress

This is how far we have come with our research so far, if you are familiar with Khayelitsha you will see this is Makhaya, Makhaza and Kuyasa

Watch this space!

collecting data and some more bits

We have collected questionnaires from 4 days of fieldwork so far, that means we have just over one hundred in so far.

I suddenly realized that we have not yet put a system in place for data capturing! To me 1000 questionnaires consisting of about 40 questions each is quite a bit! Especially since we want to ask field related questions like for example:

One question asks about the experience of men at a clinic, another asks about the area where they had a HIV test and another checks their age category.

I would like to ask a question like: How do younger men aged 25-30 get treated at clinics in Makhaza?

So the data software needs to cross check all three fields.

I'm not familiar enough with access or other database stuff, so I've put out a request for help!

Thank you for those who have made such useful suggestions so far,

I am also depending on our M + E department, our manager mentioned he might be able to design something.

Then I will dedicate one of my office staff to the task of capturing 60 questionnaires a day!

The survey questionnaires coming in so far reflect fascinating answers, a man would admit he does not know the difference between HIV and AIDS, He has never been tested, but he knows his HIV status.

Some of the MC answers are also incredibly useful in showing us how traditional initiation can assist in prevention of HIV.

I can't wait to collate and look at the final data!