The Future of Smallholder Farming in Eastern Africa - Uganda ...

4.3 Factors influencing the level of activity of CBAHWs
On the assumption that the criteria for selecting trainees is crucial to their success as
CBAHWs, the research team undertook a further analysis to identify the relationship between
trainee personal characteristics (in Table 1) and their level of activity as CBAHWsCurrently,
there is limited understanding of the interaction between selection and success. Until success
is clearly defined, the role of selection and the criteria employed cannot be adequately
assessed. As a starting point, the assessment of CBAHWs’ success should incorporate their
level of activity, technical competence, role and coverage within the community,
commitment to work, motivation, and sustainability (Oakeley 2001). This study took the
level of activity to be an indicator of success. The level of activity was measured as the
number of cases handled by a CBAHW in a given period, which in this case was the one-year
period preceding the survey. The correlation between the level of activity and personal
characteristics revealed that the number of refresher courses undertaken, which is an indicator
of professional development, had a significant and positive relationship with the level of
activity of CBAHWs (Table 7). No other variables appear to significantly correlate with the
level of activity of CBAHWs.
Table 7 -- The relationship between level of activity and characteristics of CBAHWs
Variable
Correlation coefficient Significance level
Refresher courses attended 0.6244 0.000
Distance to open road 0.3692 0.038
Distance to town 0.3287 0.066
Distance to a veterinarian 0.3228 0.072
Distance to drug shop 0.3118 0.082
Total nonfarm income -0.2646 0.143
Source: Survey data, 2001.
Analysis was also undertaken to establish if there were differences in level of activity
based on gender and possession or lack of business skills. There were no significant
differences in the number of cases handled between male and female workers (p = 0.05).
Business skills were assessed at two levels: first by training and second by management or
commitment to work as a CBAHW. Training entailed courses undertaken in business skills,
and management encompassed proper day-to-day running of health care practice by keeping
records. Intuitively, one would guess that those who had undergone training in business skills
were more likely to keep records and thus that the two variables were likely to be correlated.
This was not the case, however, for this set of data. There were significant differences in the
number of cases handled by workers who kept records and those who maintained no records
(p = 0.05) (Table 8). Significant differences also existed in the number of cases handled by
those workers trained in business skills and those without training (p = 0.05). Therefore, it
appears that CBAHWs with training in business skills are more active than those without, and
gender had no significant influence on level of activity of these workers.