assessment of factors influencing performance of community health workers in health care delivery in mityana district, uganda

Description

Community Health Workers are frontline public health workers who are trusted members of and/or have an unusually close understanding of the community they serve. This trusting relationship enables CHWs to serve as an intermediary between health services and the community to facilitate access to services and improve the quality and cultural competence of health care service delivery. The study examined the different factors that influence performance of CHWs activities in health care delivery in Mityana District.The main objective was to investigate factors affecting performance of community health workers in health care delivery in Mityana District. The specific objectives were to; establish the extent to which availability of supplies influenced performance of CHW; to identify social -demographic factors influencing performance of CHWs, determine the extent to which motivation/incentive factors influence performance of CHWs and; examine the extent to which support supervision influenced performance of CHWs in health care delivery.The study was conducted in Mityana District in the three Health Sub Districts; Mityana North, Mityana South and Busunjju. It was a descriptive cross sectional study involving both quantitative and qualitative methods. The quantitative sampling size was 121.Participation was stratified by sex and similar socio-demographic background. Pre-tested, standard questionnaires with close ended questions were administered to the CHWs and community members by the researcher and research assistants. All quantitative data from the field was edited, coded and entered in a computer using Statistical Package for Social Scientists (SPSS version 10.0).Data was cleaned before analysis. Key findings on the factors influencing performance of community health workers were mainly availability of supplies, support supervision and incentives which had an impact on performance of CHWs. Availability of supplies positively influenced performance, incentives acted as motivation factor and support supervision promoted to sustainability of CHWs activities. Major recommendation to improve performance of community health workers included government support, capacity building for CHWs, provision of adequate supplies, need of facilitation in terms of transport, having a national uniform for CHW and recognition by giving certificates of merit and excellence in work related performances by CHWs.