Determinants of Community Health Agent Functionality in Arsi Region
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Date
1989-05
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Addis Abeba Universty
Abstract
A comparative case-control s tudy t o asses s the determinants
of commun i t y hea 7th agent fun c t i ona Ii ty ~~as done in two Ars i
Awrajas, in mid-southern Ethiopia. This was a census study which
'lias conducted by interviellling 347 CHAs from a structured
questionnaire. The first objective was to describe the situation
of the CHAs trained for the two Alvrajas up to the end of 1987. The
other objecti\'e was to elucidate the determinants of CHA
functionality by comparing the attributes of the functional CHAs
(cases) with that of the non-functional ones(controls). An
attempt was made to elucidate the determinants of these attributes.
The findings revealed that only 25.8% of the CHAs interviewed were
performing 50% or more of the activities mentioned in their job
description . 45.6% of the CHAs were found to be performing no
acti v ities at the time of the interview, i.e. a point prevalence of
attrition rate of 45%. Comparing cases and controls showed that
there was strong associations between CHA function and community
support for the CHAs(RR = 72.4 with 95% CI 35 - 153). The other
factor which was seen to be associated with function was supervision
by health institutions (Odds of being functional when supervised
being 28 with 95% CI of 15 - 53). Other factors ~'hich were found to
be positively related to CHA functionality were: presence of
hea lth post, provision of drugs and stationary to the CHA, and
estab Ii shment of an act i ve hea I th commi ttee wi th the CHA be ing
an execut i ve member •
These f indings emphasize the importance of the
prov i s i on of prope r commun i t y and hea I th system support for the
success o f the community health services program.
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Keywords
Determinants of Community Health Agent