Table 6 Protocol implementation, monitoring & evaluation

Review of relevant literature on;

Maternal health care policy

Maternal health care utilization

Burden of stillbirths

Perinatal deaths

Neonatal mortality

Retrieval of secondary data from MEASURE DHS;

Ghana DHS 2008

Ghana DHS 2014

Kenya DHS 2008 and

Kenya DHS 2014

Cleaning and organization of DHS data:

Dropping of irrelevant variables

Merger of data sets

Variable management

recoding and

renaming

Preliminary analysis of DHS data (secondary data)

Hypothesis testing

Analysis of association and

Determination of significant levels (set at ≤ 0.5)

Gaining entrée for primary data collection

Primary data collection

In-depth interviews (IDIs) of service providers

Focus Group Discussion (FGD) among pregnant women

Preliminary analysis of qualitative data

Data transcription

Annotation of significant statement

Coding and

Categorization of common themes

Key Informant Interviews

Transcription of key informant interviews

Triangulation of data

Drawing congruence of policy user

Perspective/perception,

Service provider perspective and

Policy implementers view points

Presentation of preliminary findings and feedback at;

Institutional level

Clinical forum

ANC clinic to policy users

Summary presentation at;

Regional Annual Performance Review

Presentation of final report at;

School of Public Health, University of Ghana

Publication of Final report for policy actors, research and scientific community in;

MOH reports

NHIA report

Internal journals

Local journals

Policy briefs

Monitoring and evaluation of phase I, II, and III

Guidance and comments of Co-investigator 1,2 and 3

Guidance and comments of Co-investigators 1 and 2

Scheduling of presentation

Purview of Co-investigators and faculty of Health Policy Planning Management of the University of Ghana Public Health School