Design and Implementation of Survey Quality Control System for Qatar's First National Mental Health Survey: Case...

Area of Science:

• Mental Health Research
• Epidemiology
• Survey Methodology

Background:

• World Mental Health (WMH) Surveys adhere to stringent data quality standards.
• Traditional face-to-face interview quality control (QC) methods are well-established.
• The COVID-19 pandemic necessitated adaptation to telephone interviews for large-scale surveys.

Purpose of the Study:

• To present the QC system developed for the WMH Qatar Survey, the first WMH survey conducted in the Middle East during the pandemic.
• To achieve high data quality by minimizing random errors and bias in data collection.
• To adapt QC procedures for telephone-based data collection.

Main Methods:

• Designing and implementing a QC indicator system tailored for telephone surveys.
• Investigating over 11,000 flags generated during two survey waves.
• Monitoring interviewer performance through live calls and implementing corrective actions.

Main Results:

• The most frequent flags indicated short question administration times and repeated question visits.
• Live monitoring provided insights into interviewer patterns and flag triggers.
• Interviewer performance was improved through feedback and retraining; some with low productivity were removed.

Conclusions:

• The implemented QC procedures were crucial for achieving the target of 5000 interviews for the WMH Qatar Survey.
• QC strategies and new indicators for telephone interviews enhanced data verification.
• This study demonstrates rigorous quality monitoring for large-scale sensitive surveys during a global health crisis.