Abbreviation | Introduction to be read aloud prior to asking the 12 IWISE questions: ‘I will now ask you about your experiences with water. For each experience, we want to know in how many months this happened to you during the last 12 months. Even if it happened just once during a month, we’d like you to count that month’. |
Worry | (1) How often did you worry that you would not have enough water for all of your needs? Never, in 1 or 2 months, in some but not every month, or in almost every month?* |
Interruption | (2) Please think about where you get most of your water, such as a tap, well, borehole, bottled water, river or stream. How often was this water source interrupted or limited in any way during the last 12 months? |
Clothes | (3) How often could your clothes not be washed because of problems with water? |
Plans | (4) How often did you have to change schedules or plans because of problems with water? |
Food | (5) Still thinking about the last 12 months, how often did you change what you ate because of problems with water? |
Hands | (6) How often were you not able to wash your hands after dirty activities because of problems with water? |
Body | (7) How often were you not able to wash your body because of problems with water? |
Drink | (8) How often did you not have as much water to drink as you would have liked? |
Anger | (9) Still thinking about the last 12 months, how often did you feel angry because of problems you were experiencing with water? |
Sleep | (10) How often did you go to sleep thirsty because there was no water to drink? |
No water | (11) How often did you have no useable or drinkable water whatsoever? |
Shame | (12) How often did you feel shame because of problems you were experiencing with water during the last 12 months? |
*The interviewer repeats the scale responses as necessary after the first item. If respondent says, ‘In every month’ code as ‘in almost every month’. ‘Never’ is scored as 0, ‘in 1 or 2 months’ is scored as 1, ‘in some but not every month’ is scored as 2 and ‘in almost every month’ is scored as 3 for a summed score ranging from 0 to 36. Although the respondents are reminded of the time frame of 12 months (stated in the initial prompt) in items 5, 9 and 12, the interviewer should repeat the time frame more frequently if the respondent is struggling or confused.