background workforce motivation and retention is important for the functionality and quality of service delivery in health systems of developing countries. despite huge primary healthcare (phc) infrastructure, pakistan’s health indicators are not impressive; mainly because of under-utilization of facilities and low patient satisfaction. one of the major underlying issues is staff absenteeism. t...

BACKGROUND Retaining health workers in rural areas is challenging for a number of reasons, ranging from personal preferences to difficult work conditions and low remuneration. This paper assesses the influence of intrinsic and extrinsic motivation on willingness to accept postings to deprived areas among medical students in Ghana. METHODS A computer-based survey involving 302 fourth year medi...

OBJECTIVE To determine how specific job attributes influenced fourth year medical students' stated preference for hypothetical rural job postings in Ghana. METHODS Based on discussions with medical student focus groups and physicians in practice and in the Ministry of Health, we created a discrete choice experiment (DCE) that assessed how students' stated preference for certain rural postings...

BACKGROUND Decision-making on postings and transfers - that is, the geographic deployment of the health workforce - is a key element of health workforce governance. When poorly managed, postings and transfers result in maldistribution, absenteeism, and low morale. At stake is managing the balance between organisational (i.e., health system) and individual (i.e., staff preference) needs. The neg...

BACKGROUND Research on the mal-distribution of health care workers has focused mainly on physicians and nurses. To meet the Millennium Development Goal Five and the reproductive needs of all women, it is predicted that an additional 334,000 midwives are needed. Despite the on-going efforts to increase this cadre of health workers there are still glaring gaps and inequities in distribution. The ...

Background Workforce motivation and retention is important for the functionality and quality of service delivery in health systems of developing countries. Despite huge primary healthcare (PHC) infrastructure, Pakistan’s health indicators are not impressive; mainly because of under-utilization of facilities and low patient satisfaction. One of the major underlying issues is staff absenteeism. T...

This paper reports on the effectiveness of using an online solution to support the implementation of PBL with a group of final-year Pharmacy students who were undertaking a rural clinical practicum placement. The online PBL tutorials were both teacherand studentled, using progressively-released static html pages and the discussion board in WebCT. The aim of this study was to investigate the eff...

BACKGROUND Bangladesh is a highly populous country with three-quarters rural population. Pressing national shortages in health professionals has resulted in high vacancy rates in rural areas. These are compounded by excessive absenteeism and low retention among nurses and doctors posted to rural locations. This study attempts to ascertain reasons for providers' reluctance to work in rural and r...