Content area
Abstract
Background
The World Mental Health surveys have been known to apply high standards of quality control, but few studies have been published to document this. Furthermore, the effectiveness of quality control has rarely been reported in the Middle East.
Case presentation
The focus of this paper was to highlight the implementation of quality control procedures in the Saudi National Mental Health Survey under the World Mental Health Survey Consortium. The paper summarizes the guidelines implemented for the various phases of survey quality control-the quality assurance procedures, the quality control procedures and the quality control appraisal components-as per previously prescribed recommendations in literature.
Conclusions
Survey quality management is a process and not reducible to a single event. Midstream corrections are warranted by detecting problems and intervening appropriately. The Saudi National Mental Health Survey implemented such procedures through continuous quality improvement.