142nd APHA Annual Meeting and Exposition

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306901
Women have trust in me, and I try to live up to this trust: Health worker motivation and workplace characteristics among facility- and community-based health workers in rural Mozambique

142nd APHA Annual Meeting and Exposition (November 15 - November 19, 2014): http://www.apha.org/events-and-meetings/annual
Monday, November 17, 2014 : 8:50 AM - 9:10 AM

Roseanne Schuster, MSc , Division of Nutritional Sciences, Cornell University, Ithaca, NY
Octávio de Sousa, BA , CARE Mozambique, Maputo, Mozambique
Carolyn Vopelak, BS , Mailman School of Public Health, Columbia University, New York, NY
Devon McMahon , Department of Biological Sciences, Cornell University, Ithaca, NY
Delphine Pinault, BA , CARE Mozambique, Maputo, Mozambique
Sera Young, MA, PhD , Division of Nutritional Sciences, Cornell University, Ithaca, NY
Audio (mp3) recording Recorded Presentation (mp4)
Background: Frontline health workers are fundamental to reducing the burden of HIV/AIDS, and motivation is central to their performance. Yet interventions to improve delivery of HIV/AIDS-related services have often overlooked their impact on health worker motivation. Furthermore, the factors affecting the motivation of both facility- and community-based health workers have not been concurrently examined in the continuum of HIV/AIDS care. Therefore, we characterized key individual and workplace characteristics that capture different aspects of motivation among facility- and community-based health workers who provide care to HIV-infected women and their infants in rural Mozambique in order to describe health worker motivation and examine differences among cadres.

Methods: We assessed the motivation of 136 health workers [clinical health workers (n=66), community-based HIV volunteers (n=60), and traditional birth attendants (n=10)] using a survey incorporating phenomena germane to motivation that were identified in formative work.

Results: The majority of both facility- and community-based health workers reported feeling that they make a difference in their community (94% and 97%). Facility-based health workers reported working under high levels of pressure (72%), receiving constructive feedback from supervisors (53%), receiving refresher trainings as often as needed (48%), and satisfaction with salary (26%). Community-based health workers reported receiving constructive feedback from supervisors (86%), lacking supplies for their work (71%), and satisfaction with remuneration (49%).

Conclusions: All health workers reported high levels of intrinsic motivation. However, each cadre encounters challenging workplace characteristics that can be focal points for interventions targeting health worker performance for improving delivery of HIV/AIDS-related health services.

Learning Areas:

Conduct evaluation related to programs, research, and other areas of practice
Implementation of health education strategies, interventions and programs
Systems thinking models (conceptual and theoretical models), applications related to public health

Learning Objectives:
Identify the importance of measuring health worker motivation in interventions targeting health service delivery Discuss different aspects of motivation and workplace characteristics that may affect health worker performance Compare and contrast how these factors differ by health worker cadre

Keyword(s): Community Health Workers and Promoters

Presenting author's disclosure statement:

Qualified on the content I am responsible for because: I conceptualized the research, developed materials, supervised actual data collection, and supervised and conducted data analysis.
Any relevant financial relationships? No

I agree to comply with the American Public Health Association Conflict of Interest and Commercial Support Guidelines, and to disclose to the participants any off-label or experimental uses of a commercial product or service discussed in my presentation.

Back to: 3075.0: International/Global Health Student Presentations