Effects of Work Ethics Practices on Performance of Health Workers: A Case of Coast General Teaching and Referral Hospital

Abstract

Health systems are weakened by lack of work ethics practices across many parts of the developing world and this slows progress in management of diseases and the global health agenda for access of health care service to all. In line with the WHO six building blocks of health system it is important to ensure work ethics practices are adhered to so as to enhance service delivery. This study aimed at establishing the effects of work ethics l practices on performance of health workers at Coast General Teaching and Referral Hospital. The variables reviewed in this study included: accountability, teamwork, commitment and interpersonal relationships and their influence on performance of health workers at Coast General Teaching and Referral Hospital. Social control theory, employee risk triangle theory, job design theory, stress facilitation theory guided development and conduction of this study. Study population for this study were the health workers in Coast General Teaching and Referral Hospital. The paper used Stratified random sampling technique and simple random techniques to come up with a sample size of 219 health workers. Raw information was realized by the use of a questionnaire. SPSS version 25 was employed in the coding and analysis of the data. Multiple regressions and bivariate logistical analyses were employed to this study and helped to evaluate the connection that exists between the study variables. The study found that accountability, teamwork, employee commitment and interpersonal relationships greatly influence the employee performance at Coast General Teaching and Referral Hospital. The independent variables in the study influence 61.1% of the employee performance at the Coast General Teaching and Referral Hospital as represented by the R2 . At the significance level of 95%, employee commitment and interpersonal relationships has the most influence on performance of the healthcare employees with a significance value of (0.000). Further the significance value of accountability and teamwork was .048 and .037 respectively. The study recommended that the hospital can employ the strategy of using score cards where the daily activities/achievements of the individual health workers will be entered and ranking is done, the hospital management should install a modern system of communication that reduces the movements within the operations halls/wards but allows all the concerned individuals to fully focus on a task and also recommend that the hospital management should empower their workers’ commitment by being given the autonomy where the employees can make minor decisions without consulting with the management or supervisors and that the hospital to adopt a horizontal system of leadership with the aim of promoting the relationships between the management and the employees.