Example

Table 11 summarises the range of research methods used in the different phases of an IR project in Bangladesh. It describes a cluster randomized controlled trial designed to test a home care and community health worker intervention in comparison to established neonatal care services.

Table 11: Research methods used in the different phases of an IR newborn care project in Bangladesh

Phase of the research	Methods	Objective
Pre- intervention phase	Quantitative household survey	Provided estimates of existing neonatal mortality and levels of skilled attendance.
	Formative qualitative research	Explored home care practices that put newborns at risk of death, and the barriers for safe delivery and postnatal care.
	Observation of newborn care	Demonstrated that community health workers could diagnose newborn illness.
Intervention phase	Household surveys and in-depth interviews	Demonstrated that the intervention was being implemented as planned.
Intervention phase	Surveys, observations and in-depth interviews	Established whether the newborn package was being implemented consistently (“implementation fidelity”).
Post intervention phase	End-line household	Assessed both neonatal mortality and service coverage levels
Post intervention phase	Qualitative research	Explained in detail how and why delivery and post-natal practices changed, largely because of the engagement of the local community in the programme, and the supportive supervision of the community health workers (“meaning enhancement”).

Adapted from Baqui et al, 2008;¹³ Baqui et al, 2009;¹⁴ Choi et al, 2010;¹⁵ Shah et al, 2010.¹⁶