One of the ‘invisible’ tasks of research is recording data and placing it in a useable form for statistical analysis. This is normally in the form of a computer data file or spreadsheets for survey form tools or statistical software packages such as SPSS, SAS, STATA, or EPI Info etc.

The following GENERAL RULES should be applied:

• Organise information into rows and columns
• Rows are individual cases (such as patient records or resident responses to a survey.
• Columns are individual measures such as age, sex, immunization status etc. and reflect all the items you have to measure.
• If more than one response per case is possible then multiple columns should be used – one for each possible response option.
• Use one column to create a unique ID for each record. This ID should be encrypted in some way to maintain the confidentiality of the computer records.
• If the same research subject has multiple files, the multiple files should have the same matching ID.
• Code the responses – use numbers and not text wherever possible. When using text to code a response, words must be consistently spelled and formatted – even the case must match.
• When deciding whether to use a number or a category, the rule of thumb is that if the measure is characterized by a continuous number (such as age, blood pressure) then the actual number, not the category should be recorded. The numbers can be converted to categories at a later stage.