OBSERVATIONS FROM EXTERNAL EXAMINER

Na . 1

Area of observation General Observations

Comments A good choice of research topic and the problem well stated even though I find it too long for problem statement. There are too many short paragraphs that make reading difficult. Also, there are too many subtitles, some one or half line. These can be combined without losing the meaning or intended massage. More important, grammatical and typographical errors, a lot of them, need to be attended. There is a need for consistency in the use of capital and lower cases when writing names/titles for easy referencing. Also the choice of words needs to be addressed so that the reader doesnt get confused. The candidate needs to economize on space with proper formatting. The words and its associated factors can be removed from the general objective without loss of meaning and there is no value-added for specific objective (v) The reference Massoud and others (pg 2) is nowhere to be seen.

solution Short paragraphs, to many sub-titles, grammatical and typographical errors have been attended.

Introduction

Literature Review

The literature review addresses important issue related to standard Treatment Guideline (STD) and seems the candidate is well versed with the concept. Again, formatting, choice of words and typos need to addressed. There are too many onesentence paragraphs that can be combined for easy readability. The choice study area, that is, Magu district, needs some justification. There is a serious error on pg 16 where the whole Magu district is under water, a total area of 1725 sq. km. of which 1725 sq. km. is covered with water! Table on pg 16, is this Table 1 or

Things rectified -consistency in the use of capital and lower cases when writing names/title. -choice of words -economization of space -the term and its associated factors have been omitted. -specific objective(v0 has been removed and -reference Massoud and others has been removed because is the second Author. -Formatting, choice of words and typographical issues has been addressed

Methodology

-Too many onesentence paragraphs has been taken care. -why Magu? Has been answered pg. 16. -Error of whole Magu district been covered with water has been taken care pg. 16.

OBSERVATIONS FROM INTERNAL EXMINER Na . 1 Area of observation Title Comments Assessment of the awareness, accessibility and utilization of standard treatment guidelines (STD) at primary health facilities (a) One would like to get impression of where the study is being conducted immediately when reading the title but this is not the case here: in Tanzania, Kigoma, Tanzania, Ilala, Dar es salaam, Tanzania???? (b) The word accessibility is to broad to be to be included in the title and in the text more information and findings are about availability not accessibility. You may decide to re-examine your title again OR (c) Define accessibility as one of the key word for a reader to clearly understand the meaning. Note that sometime accessibility may include availability and utilization. One would expect to get the briefly history of the development of STG in Tanzania, this part is missing e.g how many editions do we have to date? One cannot find this information until in the sub-section of research questions page where you just ask if the Facility has STG 2007 edition!!!!!! Could you briefly explain why did you review the literature or why do we need to have literature section in the Solution

Introduction

Literature review

Methodology

Sampling procedures

Data collection

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Ethical consideration Study findings:

proposal or thesis? (a) Generally there is no connection with what you are doing, no gaps identified from the review literature that form the basis of your study, Study design: (a) The student claim to use both quantitative and qualitative data collection tools: could you please explain methods of qualitative data collection that you used and how you analyzed qualitative data? (b) Study area: could you explain why did you select Magu district and not any other district? Is it having more primary health facilities? Has previously shown that utilization of STG is very low? Simple random sampling was used to select health facilities but it is not explained how the simple random sampling was actually done!! There is minor collection needs to be rectified: number of research assistants recruited: 2 or 3? Was the informed consent verbal or written: be specific A table showing prescribers by cadres by types of health facilities is missing. This is more important to be able to compare especially when you say that prescribers of private health facilities were more aware of STG than those of public health facilities (pg 21) 47% of health facilities claimed that they have STG but kept

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Discussion

11 12 13 Other general comments

them at home or drug store: Did you trust them and why? Did you cross check whether the STGs were really in the store? (a) One expected the discussion on why private prescribers were more aware of the STG than their counterparts in the public health facilities (b) There is contradiction that use of STG in public health facilities was almost 50% and about 59% in private health facilities in page 18 but in page 29 you are saying that awareness of STG among prescribers was 37%. Could you elaborate on this contradiction? You have not at all talked about MTCs that you claimed to have a role to supervise STGs!! Include a sub-section about validity and reliability of you study. (a) There are some misspellings and grammatical errors requiring authors attentions in the report.