DESIGN OF A SURVEILLANCE SYSTEM FOR PREGNANCY AND ITS OUTCOMES IN RURAL NEPAL

Abstract

Introduction Community trials in low-income countries require monitoring and evaluation systems. The requirements of a community surveillance system include coherent design, training, field supervision and reporting, as well as the need for a robust and flexible database. Materials and methods This paper describes a surveillance system for identification of pregnancy and its outcomes in a rural area of Nepal. Mother Infant Research Activities (MIRA), in collaboration with the Institute of Child Health, London, are presently conducting a study on the impact of a community-based participatory intervention to improve essential newborn care (ENC) in rural Nepal. The study is a cluster randomised controlled trial involving 12 pairs of Village Development Committees (VDCs) in Makwanpur District. The surveillance system covers approximately 28 000 households and 28 000 married women of reproductive age. It was designed to identify pregnancy, its outcome for mother and infant, and activities such as antenatal care and problem- related health care seeking behaviour. Discussion The paper describes the processes of mapping and enumeration, pregnancy identification, conduct of interviews, quality control and data management. Key Words: data quality, database, rural Nepal.