ArticleHuman resources for health2012
Human resources for health care delivery in Tanzania: a multifaceted problem.
Article in Human resources for health, 2012. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 97 papers, 2 of them syntheses that pooled it.
What it found
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The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
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Who cites it
97 citing papers in PubMed, 2 syntheses or guidelines pooled it.
- Hospital disaster preparedness in sub-Saharan Africa: a systematic review of English literature.BMC emergency medicine · 2023Pooled it
- Integration of antenatal care services with health programmes in low- and middle-income countries: systematic review.Journal of global health · 2016Pooled it
- The impact of a human resource management intervention on the capacity of supervisors to support and supervise their staff at health facility level.Human resources for health · 2017Trial
- A time-use study of community health worker service activities in three rural districts of Tanzania (Rufiji, Ulanga and Kilombero).BMC health services research · 2016Trial
- Pathways to Nursing and Midwifery Education in Tanzania with Reflection to the Global Perspectives: A Narrative Review.Nursing reports (Pavia, Italy) · 2025Review
- What drives participation? A look at personal influences on Tanzanian nurses in project ECHO.Human resources for health · 2025Article
- A Landscape Analysis of Supportive Supervisory Mechanisms in Maternal and Child Health Programs in India.Cureus · 2025Review
- Absenteeism of Healthcare Workers in Primary Healthcare in Sub-Saharan Africa: A Scoping Review.The International journal of health planning and management · 2025Article
- Workload in antenatal care before and after implementation of an electronic decision support system: an observed time-motion study of healthcare providers in Nepal.BMC medical informatics and decision making · 2025Observational
- Access to emergency care in primary healthcare system in Tanzania: a mixed-method community-based study in a resource-limited setting.BMJ public health · 2025Article
- Costs of testing sick children in primary care with pulse oximetry: Evidence from four countries, both with and without electronic clinical decision support.PLOS global public health · 2025Article
- Time-motion study in primary health care in moldova: How do family doctors and medical assistants spend their work time?PloS one · 2025Observational
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- Community knowledge, attitude, practices and beliefs associated with persistence of malaria transmission in North-western and Southern regions of Tanzania.Malaria journal · 2023Article
- Routine health check-ups for adolescents in Mwanza City, Tanzania: stakeholders' recommendations on its content, venue, and mode of delivery.BMC public health · 2023Article
- Scrutinizing human resources for health availability and distribution in Mozambique between 2016 and 2020: a subnational descriptive longitudinal study.Human resources for health · 2023Article
- "If You Do Not Take the Medicine and Complete the Dose…It Could Cause You More Trouble": Bringing Awareness, Local Knowledge and Experience into Antimicrobial Stewardship in Tanzania.Antibiotics (Basel, Switzerland) · 2023Article
- Factors Affecting the Successful Implementation of a Digital Intervention for Health Financing in a Low-Resource Setting at Scale: Semistructured Interview Study With Health Care Workers and Management Staff.Journal of medical Internet research · 2023Article
37 more citing papers are in PubMed but not listed here.
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
9 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
backgroundRecent years have seen an unprecedented increase in funds for procurement of health commodities in developing countries. A major challenge now is the efficient delivery of commodities and services to improve population health. With this in mind, we documented staffing levels and productivity in peripheral health facilities in southern Tanzania.
methodA health facility survey was conducted to collect data on staff employed, their main tasks, availability on the day of the survey, reasons for absenteeism, and experience of supervisory visits from District Health Teams. In-depth interview with health workers was done to explore their perception of work load. A time and motion study of nurses in the Reproductive and Child Health (RCH) clinics documented their time use by task.
resultsWe found that only 14% (122/854) of the recommended number of nurses and 20% (90/441) of the clinical staff had been employed at the facilities. Furthermore, 44% of clinical staff was not available on the day of the survey. Various reasons were given for this. Amongst the clinical staff, 38% were absent because of attendance to seminar sessions, 8% because of long-training, 25% were on official travel and 20% were on leave. RCH clinic nurses were present for 7 hours a day, but only worked productively for 57% of time present at facility. Almost two-third of facilities had received less than 3 visits from district health teams during the 6 months preceding the survey.
conclusionThis study documented inadequate staffing of health facilities, a high degree of absenteeism, low productivity of the staff who were present and inadequate supervision in peripheral Tanzanian health facilities. The implications of these findings are discussed in the context of decentralized health care in Tanzania.
Identifiers
What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.