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Review
. 2016 Nov;45(11):1399-1410.

Affecting Factors on the Performance of Community Health Workers in Iran's Rural Areas: A Review Article

Gholamhossein Salehi Zalani  1 , Mahboubeh Bayat  2 , Azad Shokri  3 , S Elmira Mirbahaeddin  4 , Vahid Rasi  5 , Samira Alirezaei  5 , Fatemeh Manafi  6
Affiliations
Review

Affecting Factors on the Performance of Community Health Workers in Iran's Rural Areas: A Review Article

Gholamhossein Salehi Zalani et al. Iran J Public Health. 2016 Nov.

Abstract

Background: This study aimed to use a mixed-method approach to investigate affecting factors on the performance of Community Health Workers (CHW) in Iran's villages.

Methods: This study was conducted during 2014-2015 with a mixed method in three phases of literature review, Delphi technique and developing a rich picture. Overall, in order to finalize the affecting factors and their relationships between qualitative content analysis, Delphi technique, AHP technique and Focus Group Discussion were used, respectively.

Results: Affecting factors on CHW performance were divided into four main categories, 10 sub-themes and 35 contents. Increase in the level of people's awareness, disease patterns, demographic structure and lifestyle were placed in four priorities respectively on the basis of importance.

Conclusion: To the most extent CHW cannot face current needs of rural communities. It challenges equitable access to healthcare services and also conflicts with the primary philosophy of CHW presence in rural areas. CHW can be used in two forms; either as an assistant to rural family physicians or with the same previous functions.

Keywords: Affecting factors; CHW; Iran; Performance; Rural areas.

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Figures

Fig. 1:
Fig. 1:
Study framework
Fig. 2:
Fig. 2:
Rich picture of the relationships between affecting factors on CHW performance
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