There’s No App for That: Assessing the Impact of mHealth on the Supervision, Motivation, Engagement, and Satisfaction of Community Health Workers in Sierra Leone

<p>Background</p><p>The unprecedented access to mobile phones in resource-poor settings has seen the emergence of mobile-health (mHealth) applications specific for low- and middle-income contexts. One such application is the Mobile Technology for Community Health Suite (MOTECH Suit...

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Autores principales:	Frédérique Vallières, Eilish McAuliffe, Bianca van Bavel, Patrick J. Wall, Augustine Trye
Formato:	article
Lenguaje:	EN
Publicado:	Ubiquity Press 2017
Materias:	mHealth community health workers Sierra Leone organizational factors Infectious and parasitic diseases RC109-216 Public aspects of medicine RA1-1270
Acceso en línea:	https://doaj.org/article/cee998f49adc494fb2797735375576cc
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spelling	oai:doaj.org-article:cee998f49adc494fb2797735375576cc2021-12-02T05:57:51ZThere’s No App for That: Assessing the Impact of mHealth on the Supervision, Motivation, Engagement, and Satisfaction of Community Health Workers in Sierra Leone2214-999610.1016/j.aogh.2016.07.002https://doaj.org/article/cee998f49adc494fb2797735375576cc2017-03-01T00:00:00Zhttps://annalsofglobalhealth.org/articles/722https://doaj.org/toc/2214-9996<p>Background</p><p>The unprecedented access to mobile phones in resource-poor settings has seen the emergence of mobile-health (mHealth) applications specific for low- and middle-income contexts. One such application is the Mobile Technology for Community Health Suite (MOTECH Suite). Given the importance of community health worker (CHW) perceptions of a health program toward its successful implementation, this study explores whether the introduction of an mHealth application, as a human resource management tool, is associated with changes in CHW perceived supervision, motivation, work engagement, and job satisfaction over time.</p><p>Methods</p><p>We employed a 3-arm randomized longitudinal cohort design in Bonthe District, Sierra Leone. Three hundred twenty-seven CHWs were assessed over an 18-month period, with 3 different rounds of data collection. CHWs were assigned to 3 different intervention groups and given either a mobile phone with access to both the application and to a closed user group; a phone set up on a closed user group but with no application; or no mobile phone but the same level of training as the previous 2 groups.</p><p>Results</p><p>Findings indicated that there were no initial or sustained differences in perceived supervision and motivation across the 3 experimental groups over time with the introduction of the MOTECH Suite as a human resource management tool. Furthermore, there was no significant change in the self-reported measures of work engagement and job satisfaction across each of the intervention groups over time.</p><p>Discussion/Conclusion</p><p>Findings suggest that there are no systematic changes in perceived supervision, work engagement, job satisfaction, or motivation between CHWs who received a mobile phone set up on a closed user group with the MOTECH Suite application and those who either only received a phone with the closed user group or no phone at all. Therefore, the results of this study do not provide sufficient evidence to support the use of mobile technology or mHealth applications to strengthen these organizational factors within CHW programs and interventions. We argue that strengthening the organizational factors within CHW programs must therefore extend beyond the introduction of a technological solution.Frédérique VallièresEilish McAuliffeBianca van BavelPatrick J. WallAugustine TryeUbiquity PressarticlemHealthcommunity health workersSierra Leoneorganizational factorsInfectious and parasitic diseasesRC109-216Public aspects of medicineRA1-1270ENAnnals of Global Health, Vol 82, Iss 5, Pp 936-949 (2017)
institution	DOAJ
collection	DOAJ
language	EN
topic	mHealth community health workers Sierra Leone organizational factors Infectious and parasitic diseases RC109-216 Public aspects of medicine RA1-1270
spellingShingle	mHealth community health workers Sierra Leone organizational factors Infectious and parasitic diseases RC109-216 Public aspects of medicine RA1-1270 Frédérique Vallières Eilish McAuliffe Bianca van Bavel Patrick J. Wall Augustine Trye There’s No App for That: Assessing the Impact of mHealth on the Supervision, Motivation, Engagement, and Satisfaction of Community Health Workers in Sierra Leone
description	<p>Background</p><p>The unprecedented access to mobile phones in resource-poor settings has seen the emergence of mobile-health (mHealth) applications specific for low- and middle-income contexts. One such application is the Mobile Technology for Community Health Suite (MOTECH Suite). Given the importance of community health worker (CHW) perceptions of a health program toward its successful implementation, this study explores whether the introduction of an mHealth application, as a human resource management tool, is associated with changes in CHW perceived supervision, motivation, work engagement, and job satisfaction over time.</p><p>Methods</p><p>We employed a 3-arm randomized longitudinal cohort design in Bonthe District, Sierra Leone. Three hundred twenty-seven CHWs were assessed over an 18-month period, with 3 different rounds of data collection. CHWs were assigned to 3 different intervention groups and given either a mobile phone with access to both the application and to a closed user group; a phone set up on a closed user group but with no application; or no mobile phone but the same level of training as the previous 2 groups.</p><p>Results</p><p>Findings indicated that there were no initial or sustained differences in perceived supervision and motivation across the 3 experimental groups over time with the introduction of the MOTECH Suite as a human resource management tool. Furthermore, there was no significant change in the self-reported measures of work engagement and job satisfaction across each of the intervention groups over time.</p><p>Discussion/Conclusion</p><p>Findings suggest that there are no systematic changes in perceived supervision, work engagement, job satisfaction, or motivation between CHWs who received a mobile phone set up on a closed user group with the MOTECH Suite application and those who either only received a phone with the closed user group or no phone at all. Therefore, the results of this study do not provide sufficient evidence to support the use of mobile technology or mHealth applications to strengthen these organizational factors within CHW programs and interventions. We argue that strengthening the organizational factors within CHW programs must therefore extend beyond the introduction of a technological solution.
format	article
author	Frédérique Vallières Eilish McAuliffe Bianca van Bavel Patrick J. Wall Augustine Trye
author_facet	Frédérique Vallières Eilish McAuliffe Bianca van Bavel Patrick J. Wall Augustine Trye
author_sort	Frédérique Vallières
title	There’s No App for That: Assessing the Impact of mHealth on the Supervision, Motivation, Engagement, and Satisfaction of Community Health Workers in Sierra Leone
title_short	There’s No App for That: Assessing the Impact of mHealth on the Supervision, Motivation, Engagement, and Satisfaction of Community Health Workers in Sierra Leone
title_full	There’s No App for That: Assessing the Impact of mHealth on the Supervision, Motivation, Engagement, and Satisfaction of Community Health Workers in Sierra Leone
title_fullStr	There’s No App for That: Assessing the Impact of mHealth on the Supervision, Motivation, Engagement, and Satisfaction of Community Health Workers in Sierra Leone
title_full_unstemmed	There’s No App for That: Assessing the Impact of mHealth on the Supervision, Motivation, Engagement, and Satisfaction of Community Health Workers in Sierra Leone
title_sort	there’s no app for that: assessing the impact of mhealth on the supervision, motivation, engagement, and satisfaction of community health workers in sierra leone
publisher	Ubiquity Press
publishDate	2017
url	https://doaj.org/article/cee998f49adc494fb2797735375576cc
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There’s No App for That: Assessing the Impact of mHealth on the Supervision, Motivation, Engagement, and Satisfaction of Community Health Workers in Sierra Leone

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