Intention to leave and associated factors among Health Professionals in Public Health Centers in Jimma Zone, Southwest Ethiopia

Abstract

Background: Inadequate human resources are a major constraint to improving global health. In 2010, there was an estimated shortage of at least one million frontline health workers in the developing world. Globally, there are 61 countries with a critical shortage of healthcare workers, and 41 of them are in Africa. Similarly, Ethiopia, as any other sub Saharan African countries, is facing the challenges of shortage of skilled human resource, the health sector is characterized by a high turnover coupled with internal as well as external brain drain but there is little information on intention to leave among health professionals in public health centers Objective: The aim of this study is to assess intention to leave and associated factors among health professionals in public health centers in Jimma Zone, southwest Ethiopia Methods: A cross-sectional quantitative and qualitative study was conducted on seven randomly selected districts (woreda) which has 53 public health centers. All health professionals in sampled district public health centers were included (n=505). Factor analysis was employed for all Likert scale instruments to extract factor(s) representing each of the scales using SPSS version 16.0. Multiple Linear regressions were performed to check association between independent and dependent variables. The qualitative semi-structured interview was conducted and analyzed by thematic analysis methods. Before conducting any study ethical clearance was obtained from Jimma University College of Public Health & Medical Sciences and informed consent was obtained from each responsible body. Results; Four hundred fifty five (90.1%) participated and out of this 290 (63.7%) had intention to leave. Among variables job satisfaction (Beta=-0.298, (95%CI, -0.568 to -0.029), working environment (Beta=-0.612, (95%CI, -0.955 to -0.270) and organizational management (Beta=-0.552, (95%CI, 0.289 to 0.815) had statistically significant association with intention to leave among health professionals in public health centers in Jimma Zone Conclusions; the overall intention to leave among health professionals was high. Job satisfaction, working environment, work pressure and organizational management had statistically significantly associated and negatively affect intention to leave among health professionals in public health centers in Jimma Zone.