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Duration of Pregnancy [message #29288] Wed, 22 May 2024 16:28 Go to previous message
Kedbaah is currently offline  Kedbaah
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Registered: November 2022
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I am currently working on a project that involves categorizing children as either preterm or full-term using the KR recode file of the 2022 Ghana Demographic and Health Survey (GDHS) data. I have encountered two recode variables that pertain to the duration of pregnancy: b20 and b21. Specifically:

b20 represents the duration of pregnancy in months.
b21 appears to represent the duration of pregnancy.

For accuracy and standardization, I prefer to measure the duration of pregnancy in weeks. However, I am facing some challenges in this conversion process:

Using b21:

I initially tried converting b21 to weeks by dividing by 7. This resulted in all children being categorized as preterm, with a maximum recorded pregnancy duration of 30 weeks.
When I divided b21 by 5, the maximum duration became 42 weeks (equivalent to 10.5 months), which seems more plausible.

Using b20:
I noted from the GDHS questionnaire in the final report that the duration of pregnancy was initially reported in weeks and then multiplied by 0.23, with the result rounded to the nearest whole number.
Given these observations, I am seeking guidance on the following:

Optimal Use of b21 or b20: How can I accurately use b21 (if feasible) or b20 for classifying preterm and full-term infants without introducing bias into my analysis?
Correct Conversion Method: What would be the best approach to convert these variables to weeks, ensuring accurate categorization of preterm (less than 37 weeks) and full-term (37 weeks or more) births?
I appreciate any assistance or recommendations you can provide to help me correctly categorize the infants in my study.

Thank you for your support.
 
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