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Table 2 Quality assessment criteria

From: Childhood disability and socio-economic circumstances in low and middle income countries: systematic review

Quality criterion

Optimum

Adequate

Least valuable

Design & data collection methods

Longitudinal

Cross-sectional survey or case-control study

Case series without controls or comparison groups

Purpose

Specifically designed to collect childhood disability data

General purpose survey including questions on childhood disability

Inadequate childhood disability data

Data collection methods

Interview based

Interview based

Postal questionnaire based

Quantitative/qualitative

Combined quantitative & qualitative data on childhood disability

Quantitative only for prevalence estimation; qualitative only to study impact of disability on household

Either quantitative or qualitative data that cannot be adequately used to estimate prevalence or impact

Definitions & classifications of disability/impairment

Definition that is widely used, internationally validated & comparable with other data sets

Less than optimal definition but sufficiently detailed to allow reasonable prevalence estimates to be made

Unclear definition that does not allow comparison with other data sets

Sampling & sample

Representative of households with children in study country & sufficient size to enable prevalence estimates of less common impairments.

Representative of households with children in study country

Non-representative samples OR Small samples with inadequate numbers to make reliable prevalence estimates

Response rates

Full information on response rates with low non-response (< 10%)

Limited information on response rates or non-response (10-20%)

No response information or high response rates (> 20%)

Household measures of SES & socio-demographic characteristics

Data covering measures of income, parental education, household wealth & assets in addition to other socio-demographic characteristics including ethnicity, marital status, parental age, parental disability

Limited measures of SES such as maternal education only OR SES measures but limited data on other socio-demographic characteristics

No valid measures of SES or S-D characteristics

Information on child

Data on age, sex, school attendance

Limited information on age but no other data

No data on child - only on household as a whole

Information on children (< 19 years) living outside the home

Complete data on all children

Limited data on all children

No data on children living outside the home