Magister Public Health - MPH / Background: Adequate human resources for health play a crucial role in improving access to services and quality of care. Human resources for health are often inequitably distributed between rural and urban areas within countries. In Rwanda, almost 88% of physicians and 58% of nurses in the country work in urban areas, despite the fact that 82% of the population lives in rural areas. Kabaya is located in a remote rural area in Ngororero District; its health facilities consist of one hospital and four health centers. Living and working conditions are poor for health workers. This results in constant migration out of health workers, which has negative impacts on service delivery and quality of care provided to the population. Aim and Objectives: This study aimed to assess factors that influence the intention to stay in Kabaya amongst health workers currently in Kabaya's health facilities. The specific objectives were to analyze the associations between the following factors and intention to stay among health workers in Kabaya: socio-demographic and job characteristics; working and living conditions; and financial and non-financial incentives. Study design: An analytical, cross-sectional survey of all health workers from five facilities in Kabaya was conducted. Methods: A self-administered questionnaire, adapted from one used in a study in Uganda (Hagopian, Zuyderduin, Kyobutungi & Yunkella, 2006), was used to collect data. Data were entered in Epi-
Info 3.4 and analyzed using SPSS 16.0. Descriptive analyses and inferential statistics (Chisquare,Fisher‟s Exact) were done to test for associations with the main outcome, intention to stay. Results Out of 155 employees working in Kabaya‟s health facilities, 111 (72%) accepted to participate in the study. Of the 111 respondents, 34 (31%) indicated they intended to stay working in Kabaya indefinitely. Intention to stay (bivariate analysis) was associated with: employment category (p=0.001) and age (p<0.001); rural background - born in Kabaya (p<0.001); and born (p=0.001), grew up (p=0.001) and studied in a rural area (p<0.001); good quality supervision - encouraging employee development (p=0.029), caring for the employee as a person (p=0.011), and competent and committed facility managers(p=0.039); presence of workplace friends (p<0.001); conducive work and living environments - manageable workloads (p<0.001); good infrastructure (p<0.001); access to safe and clean water at work (p<0.001); adequate housing at home (p<0.001); having time to take lunch at work (p=0.001); access to adequate transportation to work (p=0.004); adequate shopping and entertainment(p=0.001); adequate incentives - sufficient salary (p<0.001); recognition for doing a good work(p<0.001); and adequate training (p<0.001). The small study sample precluded multi-variate analyses and it was therefore not possible to control for potential confounders such as age, sex and profession in the analysis of workplace factors. Conclusions: Intention to stay in Kabaya appears to be influenced by a complex set of factors that include: individual (age, profession, rural background), workplace, human, social, career and salaryrelated factors. Promoting retention in Kabaya‟s health facilities requires multi-faceted interventions, without which the majority of the employees are likely to continue to migrate away from the area.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:netd.ac.za/oai:union.ndltd.org:uwc/oai:etd.uwc.ac.za:11394/4526 |
| Date | January 2012 |
| Creators | Melence, Gatsinda |
| Contributors | Schneider, Helen |
| Publisher | University of the Western Cape |
| Source Sets | South African National ETD Portal |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Thesis |
| Rights | University of the Western Cape |
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