1. Purpose of data collection: For research, for public health surveillance, or others.
I used to do the data collection as a part of my thesis project during my study (Emergency and Critical Care Nursing) in Portugal. My thesis topic is related to the quality of working life and resilience among nurses in pediatric settings during COVID-19 pandemic back in 2021.
2. Was it primary or secondary data collection?
It was a primary data collection. I used questionnaires in the paper format to collect the data from four pediatrics settings in a University hospital in Faro, Portugal
3. Methods used for data collection
A quantitative cross-sectional study design was used for my project. The total population included nurses who worked at PED (Pediatric Emergency Department), GPD (General Pediatric Department), NICU (Neonatal Intensive Care Unit) and OPD (Pediatric OPD). The paper-based questionnaires consists of three main parts, Socio-demographic, Work-related Quality of life Scale, and Measuring State Resilience Scale. The protocol and all questionnaires were translated into Portuguese. After the projects was approved by ethic committee, the questionnaires were distributed. The data collection procedure took place over one month with the assistance from the representative of nurses in each unit who can communicate English.
4. Were there any problems that occurred regarding data collection?
– I found language barrier was my main problem. Not every nurses can speak English and I also cannot understand Portuguese, therefore I had the difficulty in communication especially in contacting Ethic committee and contacting participants for collecting the data. However, I received kind support from my advisor and from nurses in each unit who could speak English. They were assigned by my advisor to help explain the project to participants.
Moreover, since the questionnaires and answers were all in Portuguese, and some parts needed to be filled out by hand, I initially struggled with deciphering them. However, as I read through more of them, I became used to it.
– Due to the busy period during the pandemic, I felt my project may have inconvenienced the staff, despite requiring only 10 to 15 minutes of their time to respond. But, I fully understood their situation because I have witnessed how much workload they had.
– Not every questionnaire was returned, resulting in a 25% missing response rate for my project, and some parts of the data were incomplete due to self-administration. In our opinion, they might have misunderstood some questions.