Motivation and Factors Affecting It among Health Professionals in the Public Hospitals, Central Ethiopia

Abstract

BACKGROUND: Motivation is an individual’s degree of willingness to exert and maintain aneffort towards organizational goals. This study assessed motivational status and factors affectingit among health professionals in public hospitals of West Shoa Zone, Oromia Region.METHOD: Facility based cross-sectional survey was employed. All health professionals who servedat least for 6 months in Ambo, Gedo and Gindeberet hospitals were included. Self-administeredLikert scale type questionnaire was used. Data were analyzed using SPSS version 20. Meanmotivation calculated as percentage of maximum scale score was used. Bivariate and multiple linearregression analyses were done to see the independent effects of explanatory variables.RESULTS: The overall motivation level of health professionals was 63.63%. Motivation level ofhealth professionals varied among the hospitals. Gindeberet Hospital had lower motivation scoreas compared to Ambo Hospital (B = -0.54 and 95% CI; -0.08,-0.27). The mean motivation score ofhealth professionals who got monthly financial benefit was significantly higher than those who didnot (B = 0.71 and 95% CI; 0.32, 1.10). Environmental factors had higher impact on doctors’ motivationcompared to nurses’ (B = 0.51 and 95% CI; 0.10, 0.92). Supervisor-related factors highly varied inmotivation relative to other variables.CONCLUSIONS: Motivation of health professionals was affected by factors related to supervisor,financial benefits, job content and hospital location. Efforts should be made to provide financialbenefits to health professionals as appropriate especially, to those who did not get any suchbenefits. Officially recognizing best performance is also suggested.