2.3 Data Analysis
Responses were extracted from the LimeSuervey® application to an Excel®
spreadsheet for analysis. Data was cleaned and records were deleted if
the respondent did not complete the questionnaire. Responses of the
Likert scale were coded from 1 to 5 (1 being the lowest degree and 5 the
highest). These were then described in terms of frequency grouped by
thematic categories. Univariate Poisson regressions were used to
determine any differences among the measured percentages of the coded
form (the Likert scale) within subgroup of both answers and questions.
The explanatory variable was the group that was being analysed and was
inserted as a categorical variable. Wilcoxon rank sum test was used to
compare if two groups were equal or not. The Kruskal-Wallis
equality-of-populations rank test was used to evaluate the differences
of the median. Fisher’s exact test was used to measure association.
Significant p-value cut-off was set to 0.05.
Open-ended questions were sorted manually by theme or topic and
summarized in an interpretative way. All statistical analyses were
conducted using Microsoft Excel® and STATA S.E. 14.2® software (College
Station, Texas, USA).