Village health volunteers’ social capital related to their performance in Lao People’s Democratic Republic: a cross-sectional study

BACKGROUND: Improving the performance of community health workers (CHWs) is a global issue. The relationship between CHWs and their community may impact their performance. In Lao People’s Democratic Republic (Lao PDR), CHW are called village health volunteers (VHV). Lao PDR has a problem with VHV in...

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Autores principales: Sato, Yu, Pongvongsa, Tiengkham, Nonaka, Daisuke, Kounnavong, Sengchanh, Nansounthavong, Phetsomphone, Moji, Kazuhiko, Phongmany, Panom, Kamiya, Yasuhiko, Sato, Miho, Kobayashi, Jun
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: BioMed Central 2014
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3984685/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/24620729
http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/1472-6963-14-123
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author Sato, Yu
Pongvongsa, Tiengkham
Nonaka, Daisuke
Kounnavong, Sengchanh
Nansounthavong, Phetsomphone
Moji, Kazuhiko
Phongmany, Panom
Kamiya, Yasuhiko
Sato, Miho
Kobayashi, Jun
author_facet Sato, Yu
Pongvongsa, Tiengkham
Nonaka, Daisuke
Kounnavong, Sengchanh
Nansounthavong, Phetsomphone
Moji, Kazuhiko
Phongmany, Panom
Kamiya, Yasuhiko
Sato, Miho
Kobayashi, Jun
author_sort Sato, Yu
collection PubMed
description BACKGROUND: Improving the performance of community health workers (CHWs) is a global issue. The relationship between CHWs and their community may impact their performance. In Lao People’s Democratic Republic (Lao PDR), CHW are called village health volunteers (VHV). Lao PDR has a problem with VHV inactivity, especially in rural areas. This study focused on which aspects of social capital are related to VHV performance. METHODS: This research represents a cross-sectional study with a quantitative survey based primarily on interviews using a semi-structured questionnaire. Interviews were conducted with 149 VHVs living and working in the Sepon District. VHV performance evaluation was measured with scores on a 5-point scale, and the cutoff point for designating performance as good or poor was set at the median score. This evaluation of VHV performance was conducted as a self-evaluation by VHVs and by health center staff who were supervisors of the VHVs. Measurement of social capital was accomplished using the short version of the Adapted Social Capital Assessment Tool (SASCAT). For statistical analyses, logistic regression was used to calculate adjusted odds ratios (OR) and 95% confidence intervals (CI). RESULTS: The results of multiple logistic regression adjusted by moderator variables showed that citizenship activities in the structural social capital component of SASCAT were significantly related to performance in self-evaluation by VHVs (adjusted OR: 2.10, 95% CI: 1.19-3.71) and the evaluations by health center staff (adjusted OR: 1.67, 95% CI: 1.01-2.77). Support from groups (adjusted OR: 1.87, 95% CI: 1.27-2.76) and cognitive social capital (adjusted OR: 7.48, 95% CI: 2.14-26.10) were found to be significantly associated but only for VHV self-evaluation. CONCLUSIONS: The results suggest that individuals who interact with important figures in the community and who cooperate with other villagers whenever problems arise, i.e., have social capital, exhibit good performance as VHVs. These findings suggest that increasing citizenship activities could increase the retention rate of CHWs and help improve their performance. Citizenship activities could also be used as a predictive indicator when selecting new CHWs.
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spelling pubmed-39846852014-04-14 Village health volunteers’ social capital related to their performance in Lao People’s Democratic Republic: a cross-sectional study Sato, Yu Pongvongsa, Tiengkham Nonaka, Daisuke Kounnavong, Sengchanh Nansounthavong, Phetsomphone Moji, Kazuhiko Phongmany, Panom Kamiya, Yasuhiko Sato, Miho Kobayashi, Jun BMC Health Serv Res Research Article BACKGROUND: Improving the performance of community health workers (CHWs) is a global issue. The relationship between CHWs and their community may impact their performance. In Lao People’s Democratic Republic (Lao PDR), CHW are called village health volunteers (VHV). Lao PDR has a problem with VHV inactivity, especially in rural areas. This study focused on which aspects of social capital are related to VHV performance. METHODS: This research represents a cross-sectional study with a quantitative survey based primarily on interviews using a semi-structured questionnaire. Interviews were conducted with 149 VHVs living and working in the Sepon District. VHV performance evaluation was measured with scores on a 5-point scale, and the cutoff point for designating performance as good or poor was set at the median score. This evaluation of VHV performance was conducted as a self-evaluation by VHVs and by health center staff who were supervisors of the VHVs. Measurement of social capital was accomplished using the short version of the Adapted Social Capital Assessment Tool (SASCAT). For statistical analyses, logistic regression was used to calculate adjusted odds ratios (OR) and 95% confidence intervals (CI). RESULTS: The results of multiple logistic regression adjusted by moderator variables showed that citizenship activities in the structural social capital component of SASCAT were significantly related to performance in self-evaluation by VHVs (adjusted OR: 2.10, 95% CI: 1.19-3.71) and the evaluations by health center staff (adjusted OR: 1.67, 95% CI: 1.01-2.77). Support from groups (adjusted OR: 1.87, 95% CI: 1.27-2.76) and cognitive social capital (adjusted OR: 7.48, 95% CI: 2.14-26.10) were found to be significantly associated but only for VHV self-evaluation. CONCLUSIONS: The results suggest that individuals who interact with important figures in the community and who cooperate with other villagers whenever problems arise, i.e., have social capital, exhibit good performance as VHVs. These findings suggest that increasing citizenship activities could increase the retention rate of CHWs and help improve their performance. Citizenship activities could also be used as a predictive indicator when selecting new CHWs. BioMed Central 2014-03-12 /pmc/articles/PMC3984685/ /pubmed/24620729 http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/1472-6963-14-123 Text en Copyright © 2014 Sato et al.; licensee BioMed Central Ltd. http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0 This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly credited.
spellingShingle Research Article
Sato, Yu
Pongvongsa, Tiengkham
Nonaka, Daisuke
Kounnavong, Sengchanh
Nansounthavong, Phetsomphone
Moji, Kazuhiko
Phongmany, Panom
Kamiya, Yasuhiko
Sato, Miho
Kobayashi, Jun
Village health volunteers’ social capital related to their performance in Lao People’s Democratic Republic: a cross-sectional study
title Village health volunteers’ social capital related to their performance in Lao People’s Democratic Republic: a cross-sectional study
title_full Village health volunteers’ social capital related to their performance in Lao People’s Democratic Republic: a cross-sectional study
title_fullStr Village health volunteers’ social capital related to their performance in Lao People’s Democratic Republic: a cross-sectional study
title_full_unstemmed Village health volunteers’ social capital related to their performance in Lao People’s Democratic Republic: a cross-sectional study
title_short Village health volunteers’ social capital related to their performance in Lao People’s Democratic Republic: a cross-sectional study
title_sort village health volunteers’ social capital related to their performance in lao people’s democratic republic: a cross-sectional study
topic Research Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3984685/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/24620729
http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/1472-6963-14-123
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