Assessment of Incentive Packages for Frontline Health Workers and Job Satisfaction in Selected Covid-19 Isolation Centres in Greater Accra, Ghana

Abstract

Background: Healthcare workers, particularly frontline healthcare workers, have been at the forefront of helping in contact tracing, treating, and administering of vaccines with the emergence of the novel coronavirus in 2020. Thus, governments across the globe have taken initiatives to motivate healthcare workers, particularly those at the frontline. There is however limited empirical evidence on how these incentives motivated healthcare workers to serve at the frontline and how this influenced job satisfaction. This study sought to assess incentive packages for frontline healthcare workers and the perceived job satisfaction in selected COVID-19 Isolation Centres in Greater Accra, Ghana. Method: This was a mixed-method study involving both quantitative and qualitative methods with 178 participants. A survey was conducted among 165 health workers using a self-administered questionnaire to collect data on job satisfaction and the effect of incentives on health workers’ job satisfaction. In-depth interviews were also conducted among 13 health workers to elicit their perspectives of frontline health workers on appropriate incentive packages for frontline health workers in future pandemics. Descriptive and inferential statistics and thematic content analysis were used to analyze the quantitative and qualitative data respectively. Results: Overall, 60.1% acknowledged personal receipt of incentives provided by government which included training (54%), financial incentives (49%), logistics (41%) and salary increase (31%). Among the 60.1% who received incentives, 48% rated them as bad/poor while 37% rated them good and the remaining 15% were indifferent. Of those who received COVID-19 incentives, older participants were more likely to be satisfied with their jobs compared to their younger counterparts (AOR: 7.19; 95% CI= [1.20-43.12], p=0.031). Also, participants who worked at the Ghana Infection Disease Center were more likely to be satisfied with their jobs compared to participants at the other isolation centers (AOR: 5.59; 95% CI= [1.77- 17.71], p=0.003). University of Ghana http://ugspace.ug.edu.gh xiv Furthermore, participants who received training as part of their incentive package were more likely to be satisfied with their jobs compared to those who did not receive any training (AOR: 3.18; 95% CI= [1.20-8.45], p=0.020). Conclusion: Though more than half of health workers were satisfied with their jobs, incentives provided by government to frontline health workers in the fight against COVID-19 was rated by majority of respondent as poor. Generally, healthcare workers were not satisfied with these incentives due to factors such as inconsistencies in the delivery of incentives and the fact that their risk was not equally matched with incentives. Major stakeholders directly involved in mitigating strategies of pandemics and outbreaks should ensure the provision of acceptable incentive packages and identify more welcoming methods of distribution.