Browsing by Author "Theu, Joe"

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    An analysis of factors affecting health-workers application of the routine HIV testing and counseling (RHT) protocol
    (Stellenbosch : Stellenbosch University, 2014-04) Theu, Joe; Munro, Greg; Stellenbosch University. Faculty of Economic and Management Sciences. Dept. of Industrial Psychology. Africa Centre for HIV/AIDS Management.
    ENGLISH ABSTRACT: Not all patients who come to the hospital are offered Routine HIV Testing and Counseling (RHT) as is expected by the Ministry of Health of Botswana’s Routine HIV Testing and Counseling Protocol. This study sought to unearth in detail, factors that affect health-workers in Thamaga Primary Hospital in their application of RHT. A qualitative study was used to get lived experiences of health-workers working at Thamaga Primary Hospital. Semi-structured in-depth interviews were conducted with 4 groups of health workers and with 6 individual health-workers. Content analysis was done on the data collected selecting emerging themes deductively. Relational analysis was conducted to gain the meaning of the findings. The findings of the deductive analysis were also compared inductively with The Porter-Lawler Theory of Motivation to see if theory was applicable in HIV work or applicable to health-worker motivation. Seven main factors that affect RHT either positively or negatively emerged: accountability, health-worker knowledge, human rights, workload, resources, patients’ age and patients’ knowledge. Accountability (36.8%) was by far, the dominant factor that influenced RHT positively when it was present and negatively when it was absent. The other two factors which had sizable portions were knowledge of RHT (21.2%) and human rights issues (20.2%). When concept mapping was done to find meaning, lack of knowledge of RHT was found to lead to poor understanding of human rights which led to poor accountability that led to the many other factors that were inter-related and ultimately directly or indirectly influenced performance levels of RHT. When tested against the findings, The Porter-Lawler Theory of Motivation was congruently applied to factors that arose with minor discrepancies on intrinsic factors making it largely relevant to HIV work or health-worker motivation. The findings call for training of health-workers on RHT and human rights issues accompanied by concurrent application of performance monitoring and appraising tools like Performance Based Reward Systems/ Performance Development Plans (PBRS/PDPs) that enhance accountability. Use of The Porter-Lawler Theory in HIV work or health-worker motivation is still applicable and is recommended where underlying factors are less well understood or not yet researched.