Data Instrument for Surgical Global Outreach (DISGO)
DISGO
What is DISGO?
This tool is designed to help improve record keeping, track outcomes, and permit researchers to more accurately study the surgical outreach efforts to low- and middle-income countries. The data points included in this data collection sheet have been identified as important for the development of policy, conducting surgical research, performing economic analyses, among other basic analyses of global surgical outreach efforts to low- and middle-income countries. The instrument includes two components: the datasheet and the codebook. The instrument collects data for three main categories:
Basic Data Form
Data regarding the basic characteristics of the surgical outreach program will be reported. This section will request you to provide basic characteristics of the surgical efforts, an overview of the interventions performed, a brief description of any educational efforts, and information regarding personnel participating on the surgical outreach effort.
Cost Data Form
Data regarding the cost of the surgical outreach efforts will be reported. This part of the form will ask you to report data on various cost categories.
Patient Data Form
Data regarding the patients served during the surgical outreach effort will be reported. This section will request you to provide information regarding basic patient demographics, the surgical or medical condition, treatment course, and patient follow-up and outcomes.
FAQ
You can download the DISGO sheet here. The content is available through the Creative Commons BY license.
We are in the process of publishing the results from a project validating DISGO. This publication can be used as a citation. Until then, you can use this website to cite the data instrument.
We believe that the quality of the data will be better if the data points are collected prospectively. However, retrospective data collection is also possible. We suggest you indicate the method of data collection on the first page.
We recommend that you use the whole data instrument. Nonetheless, if you feel specific sections would be more useful to you, then specific sections may be used as well. However, all use must be compliant with the Creative Commons BY license.
