Table 2 Needs assessment

1. A critical review of the MNCH policies in the four study countries through [30]:

• document analysis of national, regional and local policies and guidelines,

• semi-structured in-depth interviews with stakeholders at national, regional, and district levels and with health workers, and

• focus group discussions with health workers and women and men from the local community

2. A detailed quantitative situation analysis of existing MNCH services and care at the four study sites using routinely collected and available data on MNCH at national and study site level [29].

Checklist and interview guides to collect needs assessment data were developed. Data collection took place between December 2011 and April 2012 and was performed by project research staff. In-depth interviews and focus group discussions were audio recorded, transcribed and translated if needed. Qualitative data was analysed by extracting themes and triangulating. Quantitative data was entered in an Access database, and checked for errors by the lead partner (SL and HB). A descriptive analysis of the quantitative data was undertaken using SPSS 20.

Results of both baseline studies enabled a description of the national policy landscape in PPC within each setting and evaluation of implementation at local level [29, 30].