Abstract:
Background; Increased motivation creates the conditions for a more effective workforce, but because
work motivation is an interactive process between workers and their work environment, good
management and supervision are still critical factors in reaching organizational goals. Motivation is
crucial for organizations to function; without motivation employees will not put up their best and the
organization’s performance would be less efficient.
Objective: To assess Level of job motivation and associated factors among health care professionals
working in public health institutions of Gedeo Zone, southern Ethiopia, 2015.
Methods: A cross-sectional study design, employing both quantitative and qualitative methods was
conducted in 36 health center of Gedeo zone, during February 20 to May 10, 2015. A total of 292 health
care professionals selected by simple random sampling among 661. The data were analyzed using SPSS
version 20.0 statistical software. Factor score was computed for the items identified to represent the level
of job motivation by Varimax rotation method. Using this regression factor score, multivariate linear
regression analysis was performed and the effect of independent variables on the regression factor score
was quantified. Qualitative data collected using key informant interviews to triangulate with the findings
from the quantitative data.
Results: Among total respondents, 56.2% of them were male, the average age of the respondents was
28.69 (SD 6.25), ranging from 20 years to 50 years. Above three quarter 77.4% (226) of the respondents
were discourage from working hard for different reasons. Among Health care professionals working in
public health centers, only 57 (19.5%) of them were highly motivated, among 292 health care
professionals, only 6.2% (18) of them are rewarded for their hard working. Sex, communication, resource
availability, inadequate salary, feedback, training, working environment and workload were negative
determinates of job motivation as measured by the three latent factors among health care professionals
working in public health centers.
Conclusion and Recommendations: This study revealed about half of health centers not give feedback
for their employer, about half of health care professionals were not satisfied with communication between
management and the staff, majority of health care professionals were not satisfied with their salary and
around majority of employees are not recognized for their good work done. Around one fourth of the
health care professionals were low motivated, healthcare organizations should maximize its effort to
practice incentive schemes.
