Table 6.

Protocol implementation, monitoring & evaluation

Phase I	Phase II	Phase III
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