Indicators and data collection
EYE DISEASES
The Reach, Effectiveness, Adoption, Implementation and Maintenance (RE-AIM) frameworkThe indicators for the Reach, Effectiveness, Adoption, Implementation and Maintenance elements for the studyThe proportion of children screenedReasons a high screening coverage achieve/not achieveThe proportion of children who went for follow-up examination/postreferralThe proportion of children wearing spectacles during an unannounced visitThe proportion of children wearing spectacles full timeEnabling or inhibiting factors achieving the expected outcomesThe proportion of schools that started eye health and health screening within 2 months after the programme was implementedThe proportion of schools that completed screenings at the end of 6 monthsFactors inhibit the complete adoption of the programmeThe proportion of children who fail eye health screening, when re-examined by the optometrist, have vision worse than 6/12 or obvious eye diseases (validity)The proportion of children who pass screening, when re-examined by the optometrist, have 6/12 vision or better and no obvious eye diseases (validity)Factors influencing the implementation or lack of implementation of the programmeThe proportion of schools that continued with the programme after funding had endedEnabling and inhibiting factors for the continuation of the programmeAll teachers who underwent training took a pretraining and post-training assessment. A list of children identified with eye conditions was compiled from the student eye screening register. The research coordinator visited the schools to collect the list monthly. The optometrist compiled a list of names of the children examined, and their diagnoses were recorded. Two months after the programme was implemented, a team of researchers conducted a monitoring trip to determine the number of schools that completed the activities, why any teachers had not completed screening and the eye health screening validity. Teachers who had not yet started the screening activities were requested to start, while those who had not completed screening activities were asked to continue. Six months after the programme was implemented, the local researchers returned to the schools to determine (1) the number of schools that completed screenings, (2) the number and reasons of children not going for follow-up eye examinations at the eye clinics, (3) the spectacle-wearing compliance and (4) the reasons for not wearing their spectacles.A series of semistructured interviews were conducted with a purposively selected sample of implementors from the MoH (n=4) and Ministry of Education and Vocational Training (n=8) and teachers (n=24) to capture and understand individual and organisational challenges and outcomes experienced during programme implementation. In January 2018, headteachers were contacted to determine if the schools continued with the programme after funding had ended and the reasons for continuing or discontinuing.