ArticleThe International journal of health planning and management2018
Why do people become health workers? Analysis from life histories in 4 post-conflict and post-crisis countries.
Article in The International journal of health planning and management, 2018. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 10 papers, 1 of them a synthesis that pooled it.
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The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
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
10 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it.
- Health-care worker retention in post-conflict settings: a systematic literature review.Health policy and planning · 2023Pooled it
- Empowering Change: A Systematic Review of the Challenges Faced by Female Healthcare Workers in Pakistan.Cureus · 2026Review
- How Organisational and Socio-Cultural Contexts Shape Healthcare Workers' Intrinsic, Prosocial, and Public Service Motivation in Africa: A Scoping Review.International journal of health policy and management · 2025Article
- Needs-led human resource planning for Sierra Leone in support of oral health.Human resources for health · 2021Article
- Participation of women in the health workforce in the fragile and conflict-affected countries: a scoping review.Human resources for health · 2021Article
- The relevance of educational attainments of parents of medical students for health workforce planning: data from Guiné-Bissau.Human resources for health · 2020Article
- Sex and Gender in Research on Healthcare Workers in Conflict Settings: A Scoping Review.International journal of environmental research and public health · 2020Article
- Determinants of Motivation among Healthcare Workers in the East African Community between 2009-2019: A Systematic Review.Healthcare (Basel, Switzerland) · 2020Review
- Why do people become health workers? Analysis from life histories in 4 post-conflict and post-crisis countries.The International journal of health planning and management · 2018Article
- Learning from the experiences of midwifery students and recent graduates in humanitarian and conflict-affected settings: A prospective cohort study protocol.Women's health (London, England)Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
6 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
While there is a growing body of literature on how to attract and retain health workers once they are trained, there is much less published on what motivates people to train as health professions in the first place in low- and middle-income countries and what difference this makes to later retention. In this article, we examine patterns in expressed motivation to join the profession across different cadres, based on 103 life history interviews conducted in northern Uganda, Sierra Leone, Cambodia, and Zimbabwe. A rich mix of reported motivations for joining the profession was revealed, including strong influence of "personal calling," exhortations of family and friends, early experiences, and chance factors. Desire for social status and high respect for health professionals were also significant. Economic factors are also important-not just perceptions of future salaries and job security but also more immediate ones, such as low cost or free training. These allowed low-income participants to access the health professions, to which they had shown considerably loyalty. The lessons learned from these cohorts, which had remained in service through periods of conflict and crisis, can influence recruitment and training policies in similar contexts to ensure a resilient health workforce.
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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.