Motivation Factors Influencing Retention of Staffinpublic Hospitals in Kenya: A Case Study of Kiambu District Hospital

There is a growing emphasis on the need to tackle inadequate human resources for health as an essential part of strengthening health systems. Efforts need to be made to understand the capability of health workers, their motivation and other structural and organizational aspects of systems that influence workforce performance and retention. In the year 2006, World Health Organization Report emphasized the need to tackle inadequate human resources for health though proper motivation and retention of qualified staff as an essential part of strengthening health systems. Medical brain drain has been a real threat to provision of health care not just in Kenya but also in Africa at large. All cadres of medics have been resigning and getting employment especially in the western countries where the demand is high, salaries are higher and advanced facilities are available. Therefore this study generally aimed at investigating the motivational factors influencing retention of staff in public hospitalsinKenya using Kiambu District Hospital as a case study. Specifically the study aimed at determining the influence of promotion and training and development on the retention of staff in Kiambu District Hospital. This study adopted a case study research design. The target population was10 doctors, 20 clinical officers and 225 nurses totaling up to 255 health workers inKiambu District Hospital. A sample of 128health workers was drawn from the target population translating to 50 % using stratified sampling technique. Data was collected using structured questionnaires and interviews. Descriptive statistics including percentages, frequencies mean, and standard deviation were used to analyze the data obtained. While inferential statistics such as regression were used to determine the relationship between the variables. The results were presented using tables, graphs, and pie charts for ease of understanding. From the results on the regression summary the R Square is 0.955 which shows that staff retention in Kiambu District Hospital was affected by promotion and training and development. This indicated that there was a variation of 95.5 % on staff retention in Kiambu District Hospital with promotion and training and development. The remaining 4.5 % indicates that there are other factors which affected staff retention in Kiambu District Hospital which were not studied in the current study. Thevalues also show that all the two independent variables under study significantly influenced staff retention in Kiambu District Hospital. At 95 % confidence interval, the p-values (0.00less than 0.05 and 0.00less than 0.05) for promotion, and training and development respectively predicted staff retention inKiambu District Hospital. The study recommends that Kiambu District Hospitalshould implement policies that state promotion titles be accompanied by monetary gains in order to improve employee retention since they are motivated because of career growth opportunities at the Hospital. The study also recommends that Kiambu District Hospital to ensure every employee gets equal opportunity for training since its the only way service delivery in the public hospitals sector will improve and increase staff retention rate.