Managerial Capacity of Health Care Managers in Primary Health Care Centres in Ekiti State, Nigeria

Abstract

Background: The performances of Primary Health Care workers play key roles in delivering quality health care thereby leading to health systems’ strengthening. This study assessed the managerial capacity of health care managers at Primary Health Care centres in Ekiti State, Nigeria.
Methods: A descriptive cross-sectional study was carried out amongst 188 health care managers in all the Local Government Areas of Ekiti State, Nigeria from August to November 2020. Self-administered questionnaires (google form) were used to obtain data. Analysis of data was done with STATA SE 12. The level of significance (p-value) was set at <0.05.
Results: The mean age of respondents was 45.9 ± 7.0 years with females 161 (85.6%) and males 27 (14.4%). More than one-third 69 (36.7%) of respondents had received formal training in managerial and leadership development. The majority of respondents (94.7%) had good managerial capacity with a mean total score of 279.8 ± 46.9. There was a statistically significant difference in the average managerial capacity scores across the level of education and professional experience categories. Respondents who had tertiary education and those with more than 5 years’ experience had higher managerial capacity scores compared to others. (p < 0.001)
Conclusion: The findings indicated that majority of the Primary Health Care managers in Ekiti State had a good managerial capacity to run the Primary Health Care systems. It is recommended that individual health workers should continue with personal development and continuous institutional development by the state government is encouraged towards improvement of health services rendered.

Keywords: Managerial capacity; Healthcare managers; Primary Health Care; Institutional development