An investigation of the factors that influence the retention of physiotherapists in the South African public sector

[摘要] ABSTRACTEvery year, physiotherapists leave the South African public sector in large numbers,citing reasons such as low salaries and unsatisfactory working conditions as the maincontributing factors. However, despite this, there are some physiotherapists whocontinue to choose to stay for the duration of their careers, and it is the aim of this studyto investigate the factors that influence these choices. The author has tried to achievethis by trying to predict those factors that cause physiotherapists to stay at their currentwork places and by finding out if these physiotherapists share any commoncharacteristics and motivations which contribute to their decisions to stay. Theparticipants were also asked to rate their current job satisfaction, rank the importance ofgiven motivation factors for retention and what they knew about their own institutions’retention strategies.The study population was made up of all the qualified physiotherapists working for theSouth African public sector in Gauteng between January and December 2006. Therewere 93 physiotherapists who met these study criteria, 76 (82.0%) of whom completedthe questionnaire.The research revealed that characteristics such as gender, age, race, marital status,having children and being the family breadwinner played a significant role asdeterminants of whether physiotherapists left or stayed at their current public sector jobsin 2007. For example, the female participants and those who had children were twice aslikely to stay as the male participants and those who did not have children, respectively.Similarly, the white participants and those who were family breadwinners were threetimes more likely to stay than those of other racial groups and non-breadwinners,respectively. Physiotherapists over the age of thirty-one were almost five times morelikely to stay than their younger counterparts. On the other hand, factors such asprofessional rankings, having postgraduate qualifications and the type or level ofinstitution seemed to play relatively insignificant roles.According to the results, the respondents’ main source of dissatisfaction was theirsalaries, followed by what they felt were poor opportunities for promotion. Feelingunappreciated and undervalued in their workplaces, as well as poor recognition for theirprofessional status, were also rated as contributors to dissatisfaction. They felt that more attention needed to be given to improve on these factors if the retention ofphysiotherapists was to be achieved successfully.The factors which received the highest importance rating and ranking as retentionfactors, included, once again, better salaries, promotion opportunities, careerdevelopment and training opportunities, as well as receiving the scarce skills allowance.In terms of knowledge of the existence of retention strategies for physiotherapists intheir institutions, only 29% responded positively, the most commonly cited one being thescarce skills allowance.The main conclusion that was drawn from this study is that in addition to better salaries,improved working conditions and more promotion opportunities, there are morecharacteristic features that are shared by those physiotherapists that stay in the SouthAfrican public sector. These, as mentioned earlier, include being a female, being overthe age of 31, being married, having children and carrying the financial responsibilities of a family breadwinner.Finally, in terms of some of the key recommendations made, the findings of this studyreveal a heightened necessity for the government of South Africa to review the salarystructure of public sector physiotherapists in an effort to motivate them and encouragethem to stay. Furthermore, it is recommended that physiotherapy managers improvetheir human resource record keeping, particularly worker flow and turnover data, andthat they encourage more evidence-based research in the field of physiotherapy humanresources.

[发布机构] University of the Witwatersrand