2 METHODOLOGY
A descriptive cross-sectional survey design was employed to assess the L-Asparaginase usage practice among healthcare providers treating children with cancer in India. The survey was conducted through the smart survey platform. Firstly, the researchers sent an email invite to all the potential participants associated with the study. The researchers sent fortnightly reminders to the participants during the data collection process to minimise the non-responses. Data collected through this platform was digitally stored in a designated device as an encrypted file. The data was transferred and securely stored in a hard drive upon completing the data collection process.
The researchers have designed a three-part survey containing 25 questions to collect data from study participants. The first part consisted of information about the survey and consent. The second part included five questions to capture the demographic details of the survey participant, and the last part had 20 questions aimed to assess the Asparaginase usage practices of the respondents. Out of the 20 core questions, 14 were multiple choice questions, and the remaining six were dichotomous questions. A pilot survey on five pediatric oncologists was implemented to check content validity and comprehensibility, of the questionnaire, the results of which was excluded from the present data analysis.
The participant’s responses to the survey questionnaire were recorded on Microsoft Excel 2016 and quantitatively analysed using IBM SPSS 16.0. Descriptive statistics were implemented in the present study. The Institutional Ethics Committee (IEC), Kasturba Hospital and Kasturba Medical College, Manipal (IEC 532/2020) approved the study protocol.