Ghana - Demographic and Health Survey 1988

Start	End	Cycle
1988-02	1988-06	N/A

Face-to-face
For the main survey, eight days' training was organized for the 16 supervisors and editors who had earlier taken part in the pretest. This was followed by 3-week training for interviewers. Personnel involved in the fieldwork were 40 interviewers (26 males, 14 females), 8 supervisors (6 males, 2 females), 8 editors (7 males and 1 female) and 11 drivers. Fifty-six of the field staffs were recruited from the Ghana Statistical Service, whilst 11 persons were recruited from the Department of Community Development and the Department of Social Welfare. Fieldwork began on 13th February 1988 and was completed on 5th June 1988.

Three different types of questionnaires were used for the GDHS. These were the household, individual and the husband questionnaires. The household and the individual questionnaires were adapted from the Model "B" Questionnaire for the DHS program. The GDHS is one of the few surveys in which special effort was made to collect information from husbands of interviewed women on such topics as fertility preferences, knowledge and use of contraception, and environmental and health related issues.

All usual members and visitors in the selected households were listed on the household questionnaire. Recorded in the household questionnaire were data on the age and sex of all listed persons in addition to information on fostering for children aged 0-14. Eligible women and eligible husbands were also identified in the household questionnaire.

The individual questionnaire was used to collect data on eligible women. Eligible women were definedas those aged 15-49 years who spent the night prior to the household interview in the selected household, irrespective of whether they were usual members of the household or not. Items of information collected in this questionnaire are as follows:
1) Respondent's Background
2) Reproductive Behavior
3) Knowledge and Use of Contraception
4) Health and Breastfeeding
5) Marriage
6) Fertility Preferences
7) Husband's Background and Women's Work
8) Weight and Height of Children Aged 3-36 Months.

In half of the selected clusters a husband's questionnaire was used to collect data on eligible husbands. Eligible husbands were defined as those who were co-resident with their wives and whose wives had been successfully interviewed. Data on the husband's background, contraceptive knowledge and use, as well as fertility preferences were collected.

All three questionnaires were translated into seven local languages, namely, Twi, Fante, Nzema, Ga, Ewe, Hausa and Dagbani. All the GDHS interviewers were able to conduct interviews in English and at least one local language. The questionnaires were pretested from mid-October to early November 1987. Five teams were used for the pretest fieldwork. These included 19 persons who were trained for 11 days.