Challenges to volunteers’ participation toward primary health‑care system and providing managerial solutions
نویسندگان
1
2 Department of Health Services Management, School of Health Services Management and Infomation Sciences, Iran University of Medical Sciences, Tehran, Iran
doi
چکیده
BACKGROUND: The role of citizens’ participation in the process of social, economic, and culturaldevelopment is necessary. Institutionalizing this role is inevitable to identify priorities and also planning,implementing, and evaluating health services. This study aimed to identify challenges ahead ofvolunteers’ participation toward primary health‑care (PHC) system and providing managerial solutions.MATERIALS AND METHOD: The study employed a qualitative research design. The data werecollected via semi‑structured interviews with key experts in the Ministry of Health, university educationand health promotion officials, education experts, health center staff, and health volunteers. Then,a focused group discussion method was employed to provide solutions. The participants wereselected via the purposive sampling method. The qualitative data were analyzed using a thematicanalysis method.RESULTS: The analyzed data were categorized into 6 main themes and 24 subthemes. The mostimportant challenges were categorized into six temporal, management, education, quality of services,motivation, and infrastructural themes. Allocating special funds for the health volunteer program,paying attention to the problems of the health workers, providing motivational programs, holdingregular retraining courses and providing educational software for health volunteers, holding regulartraining courses for health trainers and volunteers, and supporting the health volunteer program areamong the solutions.CONCLUSION: The present study showed that the health volunteer program in the PHC systemfaces several challenges, most of which are organizational and managerial ones. Therefore, amultifaceted approach should be used to improve the participation of health volunteers. In addition tomotivational factors, factors such as allocating proper resources, empowering trainers, and mobilizingthe community should be also considered. It seems that interaction among health system, people,and health volunteers should be improved.
