Improvement in malaria services in an urban setting: role of staff motivation

Urban health centres and the private clinics (PCs) providing malaria services in an urban setting were compared on seven utilization-determining factors to assess why people preferred one over the other. On the other hand, motivation level of the technical staff of the corporation in the malaria services was studied to find out the extent to which the motivation level of the staff was responsible for the observed mean scores of the factors studied. It was found that PCs fared better on all of them. However, the two differed mostly on wait-in period at the outlet, distance from residence, ambience of the outlet, and getting relief. The study further showed that for the doctors and the primary health workers, the opportunity of influencing people was the strongest motivation to work in the corporation and for the subsanitary inspectors, it was affiliation. Based on this, a model is suggested to introduce changes based on motivation mix of the malaria staff.