Health Professionals’ Intention to Leave from Public Health Facilities and Its Determinants in Gambella Region, Southwest Ethiopia

Abstract

Background: Although the number of health facilities in Gambella region has been increasing dramatically, most of the facilities are suffering from shortage of skilled health work force. High numbers of health professionals are leaving the public health facilities of the region. In-spite of the existence of such problem, its magnitude & determinants were not well known. Objective: The general objective of this study was to determine the magnitude & determinants of health professionals’ intention to leave from public health facilities of Gambella Region, Southwest Ethiopia, 2012. Methodology: Facility based cross-sectional study using quantitative method was employed from April 12 to 27, 2012. Eleven health centers using simple random sampling technique & Gambella hospital purposefully were selected. All (256) health professionals working in the selected facilities were included in the survey. Self administered structured questionnaire was used to collect the information. The data was entered and analyzed using SPSS version 16.0. Descriptive statistics was used; median and standard deviation for continuous variables and frequency for categorical variables. Variables which showed association in multivariate analysis was considered as final predictors of intention to leave and strength of association was measured through adjusted odd ratio. Result: From the total of 252 health professionals responded to the questionnaire, 122(48.4%) had indicated intention to leave their workplace within one year. The magnitude of intention to leave was higher for those who were dissatisfied with their work (86.2%), staff (84.8%), salary (78.8%), management system (75.8%), incentive (75.8%), educational opportunity (76.0%), working environment (76.3%) and those who were not participated in decision making process (76.0%). Final predictors of intention to leave were: educational level, satisfaction with salary, satisfaction with work and involvement in decision making (adjusted odd ratio = 2.08, 5.64, 4.51 and 2.44 respectively) at 5% level of significance. Conclusion: The findings of this study indicated that there is high level of health professionals’ intention to leave from public health facilities which can enormously affect the coverage and quality health services in the region. Health care policy makers and managers should develop and institutionalize evidence based health professionals recruitment and retention strategies by taking into consideration the predictors of health professionals’ intention to leave.