Assessment of health professionals’ intention for turnover and determinant factors in Yirgalem and Hawassa hospitals, Southern Ethiopia

Abstract

Background: The very low level of motivation with in workforce as a result of inadequate level of financial and non-financial incentives paved a way for health workers‟ migration much more serious in Ethiopia as in the other developing countries. It is crucial to understand health workers‟ turnover intention and determining factors in a broader context for designing and implementing effective retention mechanisms. Objective: The objective of the study was to assess health workers‟ intention for turnover and its determinants in Yiraglem and Hawassa referral hospitals, Southern Ethiopia Method: Health facility based cross-sectional survey was conducted in Yirgalem and Hawassa referral hospitals, Southern Ethiopia The study population was all of the health workers who were working in the study hospitals and the data collection tool were a self-administered five point likert scale questionnaire adopted from employee satisfaction survey tools developed by the management and leadership programme. The questionnaire was pre-tested in Dilla hospital by taking 5% of the study population and data processing and analysis was made using Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS) for windows version 16.0. Frequency distribution was displayed to check for data entry errors (e.g. unrecognized or missing values). Descriptive statistics was computed and logistic regression was used to assess the effect of selected variables on health workers turn over intention. Data collection procedures were done after ethical clearance was obtained and approved by Jimma University ethical review board and dully signed athe study hospitals and verbal consent from the study subjects was obtained.6 Result: A total of 315 questionnaire was distributed to the study subjects but 270 study subjects , 123 (45.6%) from Yirgalem hospital and 147(54.4%) from Hawassa referral hospital returned the questionnaire and the total response rate was 85.7% and all were analysed, Of these, a total of 226(83.7%) of health workers have intention to leave the hospital, and about 82(30.4%) of the respondents from the study hospitals have intention of leaving their job because of low government salary scale and seeking better job for better pay, and 47(17.4%) of the respondents from the study hospitals have reported that the cumulative effects of low government salary scale, seeking better job for better pay and better incentives were factors that forces them to leave their current job. One hundred fifty nine (58.9%) of health workers from the study hospitals prefer to work in NGOs, and 48(17.8%) of health workers of whom 10(8.1%) from Yirgalem and 38(25.9%) from Hawasssa referral hospital prefer to work in private clinic after leaving their current job. There was no statistically significant difference between health workers‟ intention for turnover and socio-demographic variables under multivariate logistic regression (P>0.05 Conclusion: Implementation of retention mechanism has generally improved and reduces health workers‟ intention for turnover, Financial and non-financial remuneration is important factors that improve retention. However; retention mechanism of health workers‟ has to be further explored.