Rerimoi AJ, Niemann J, Lange I, Timæus IM. Gambian cultural beliefs, attitudes and discourse on reproductive health and mortality: Implications for data collection in surveys from the interviewer's perspective.
PLoS One 2019;
14:e0216924. [PMID:
31095621 PMCID:
PMC6522014 DOI:
10.1371/journal.pone.0216924]
[Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 11/14/2018] [Accepted: 05/01/2019] [Indexed: 11/19/2022] Open
Abstract
Background
A community’s cultural beliefs, attitudes and discourse can affect their responses in surveys. Knowledge of these cultural factors and how to comply with them or adjust for them during data collection can improve data quality.
Objective
This study describes implications of features of Gambian culture related to women’s reproductive health, and mortality, when collecting data in surveys.
Methods
13 in-depth interviews of female interviewers and a focus group discussion among male interviewers were conducted in two rural health and demographic surveillance systems as well as three key informant interviews in three regions in The Gambia.
Results
From the fieldworker’s viewpoint, questions relating to reproduction were best asked by women as culturally pregnancies should be concealed, and menstruation is considered a sensitive topic. Gambians were reluctant to speak about decedents and the Fula did not like to be counted, potentially affecting estimation of mortality. Asking about siblings proved problematic among the Fula and Serahule communities. Proposals made to overcome these challenges were that culturally-appropriate metaphors and symbols should be used to discuss sensitive matters and to enumerating births/deaths singly instead of collecting summary totals, which had threatening connotations. This was as opposed to training interviewers to ask standardised and precise verbatim questions.
Contribution
This paper presents indigenous Gambian solutions by fieldworkers to culturally sensitive topics when collecting pregnancy outcomes and mortality data in demographic and health surveys. For researchers collecting maternal mortality data, it highlights the potential shortcomings of the sibling history methodology.
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