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Poor retention does not have to be the rule: retention of volunteer community health workers in Uganda
Globally, health worker shortages continue to plague developing countries. Community health workers are increasingly being promoted to extend primary health care to underserved populations. Since 2004, Healthy Child Uganda (HCU) has trained volunteer community health workers in child health promotio...
Autores principales: | , , , , |
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Formato: | Online Artículo Texto |
Lenguaje: | English |
Publicado: |
Oxford University Press
2014
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Materias: | |
Acceso en línea: | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4011172/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23650334 http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/heapol/czt025 |
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author | Ludwick, Teralynn Brenner, Jennifer L Kyomuhangi, Teddy Wotton, Kathryn A Kabakyenga, Jerome Kahuma |
author_facet | Ludwick, Teralynn Brenner, Jennifer L Kyomuhangi, Teddy Wotton, Kathryn A Kabakyenga, Jerome Kahuma |
author_sort | Ludwick, Teralynn |
collection | PubMed |
description | Globally, health worker shortages continue to plague developing countries. Community health workers are increasingly being promoted to extend primary health care to underserved populations. Since 2004, Healthy Child Uganda (HCU) has trained volunteer community health workers in child health promotion in rural southwest Uganda. This study analyses the retention and motivation of volunteer community health workers trained by HCU. It presents retention rates over a 5-year period and provides insight into volunteer motivation. The findings are based on a 2010 retrospective review of the community health worker registry and the results of a survey on selection and motivation. The survey was comprised of qualitative and quantitative questions and verbally administered to a convenience sample of project participants. Between February 2004 and July 2009, HCU trained 404 community health workers (69% female) in 175 villages. Volunteers had an average age of 36.7 years, 4.9 children and some primary school education. Ninety-six per cent of volunteer community health workers were retained after 1 year (389/404), 91% after 2 years (386/404) and 86% after 5 years (101/117). Of the 54 ‘dropouts’, main reasons cited for discontinuation included ‘too busy’ (12), moved (11), business/employment (8), death (6) and separation/divorce (6). Of 58 questionnaire respondents, most (87%) reported having been selected at an inclusive community meeting. Pair-wise ranking was used to assess the importance of seven ‘motivational factors’ among respondents. Those highest ranked were ‘improved child health’, ‘education/training’ and ‘being asked for advice/assistance by peers’, while the modest ‘transport allowance’ ranked lowest. Our findings suggest that in our rural, African setting, volunteer community health workers can be retained over the medium term. Community health worker programmes should invest in community involvement in selection, quality training, supportive supervision and incentives, which may promote improved retention. |
format | Online Article Text |
id | pubmed-4011172 |
institution | National Center for Biotechnology Information |
language | English |
publishDate | 2014 |
publisher | Oxford University Press |
record_format | MEDLINE/PubMed |
spelling | pubmed-40111722014-05-06 Poor retention does not have to be the rule: retention of volunteer community health workers in Uganda Ludwick, Teralynn Brenner, Jennifer L Kyomuhangi, Teddy Wotton, Kathryn A Kabakyenga, Jerome Kahuma Health Policy Plan Original Articles Globally, health worker shortages continue to plague developing countries. Community health workers are increasingly being promoted to extend primary health care to underserved populations. Since 2004, Healthy Child Uganda (HCU) has trained volunteer community health workers in child health promotion in rural southwest Uganda. This study analyses the retention and motivation of volunteer community health workers trained by HCU. It presents retention rates over a 5-year period and provides insight into volunteer motivation. The findings are based on a 2010 retrospective review of the community health worker registry and the results of a survey on selection and motivation. The survey was comprised of qualitative and quantitative questions and verbally administered to a convenience sample of project participants. Between February 2004 and July 2009, HCU trained 404 community health workers (69% female) in 175 villages. Volunteers had an average age of 36.7 years, 4.9 children and some primary school education. Ninety-six per cent of volunteer community health workers were retained after 1 year (389/404), 91% after 2 years (386/404) and 86% after 5 years (101/117). Of the 54 ‘dropouts’, main reasons cited for discontinuation included ‘too busy’ (12), moved (11), business/employment (8), death (6) and separation/divorce (6). Of 58 questionnaire respondents, most (87%) reported having been selected at an inclusive community meeting. Pair-wise ranking was used to assess the importance of seven ‘motivational factors’ among respondents. Those highest ranked were ‘improved child health’, ‘education/training’ and ‘being asked for advice/assistance by peers’, while the modest ‘transport allowance’ ranked lowest. Our findings suggest that in our rural, African setting, volunteer community health workers can be retained over the medium term. Community health worker programmes should invest in community involvement in selection, quality training, supportive supervision and incentives, which may promote improved retention. Oxford University Press 2014-05 2013-05-06 /pmc/articles/PMC4011172/ /pubmed/23650334 http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/heapol/czt025 Text en Published by Oxford University Press in association with The London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine © The Author 2013; all rights reserved. http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/3.0/ This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/3.0/), which permits non-commercial re-use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. For commercial re-use, please contact journals.permissions@oup.com. |
spellingShingle | Original Articles Ludwick, Teralynn Brenner, Jennifer L Kyomuhangi, Teddy Wotton, Kathryn A Kabakyenga, Jerome Kahuma Poor retention does not have to be the rule: retention of volunteer community health workers in Uganda |
title | Poor retention does not have to be the rule: retention of volunteer community health workers in Uganda |
title_full | Poor retention does not have to be the rule: retention of volunteer community health workers in Uganda |
title_fullStr | Poor retention does not have to be the rule: retention of volunteer community health workers in Uganda |
title_full_unstemmed | Poor retention does not have to be the rule: retention of volunteer community health workers in Uganda |
title_short | Poor retention does not have to be the rule: retention of volunteer community health workers in Uganda |
title_sort | poor retention does not have to be the rule: retention of volunteer community health workers in uganda |
topic | Original Articles |
url | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4011172/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23650334 http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/heapol/czt025 |
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