Identifying motivational factors in job performance and how they relate to attrition among village health workers in Shurugwi and Chirumanzu districts, Zimbabwe.

Abstract

Background: Motivation is one of the key determinants of village health worker performance. Motivation is difficult to assess and can be measured by a series of questions which can be grouped into smaller sets that accurately define motivation, through factor analysis. Motivation predicts job related behaviours like attrition. Such behaviours are also difficult to measure; however, proxies can be used, like intent to quit. Logistic regression can then be used to determine how the motivation groups are related to attrition. Method: The village health worker survey enrolled 338 village health workers working in Chirumanzu and Shurugwi. All the respondents were asked a series of questions that assess motivation when they came for their routine meetings. Factor analysis was used to reduce the number of items assessing motivation from 16. Logistic regression analysis was used to determine the association between motivation factors and attrition. Results: The 16 items measuring motivation were reduced to 2, namely peer support and dissatisfaction, through factor analysis. Logistic regression analysis showed that peer support was 36% protective to attrition while the odds of attrition were 3.20 times when there is dissatisfaction. Conclusion: Peer pressure and dissatisfaction are two major variables that define motivation and both are associated with attrition. Peer pressure is a protective variable while dissatisfaction is a risk factor.