Development and Testing a Volunteer Screening Tool for Assessing Community Health Volunteersʼ Motives at Recruitment and Placement in Western Kenya

Abstract

Introduction: In times of inadequate resources and rising public demand, social service organizations rely on volunteers to meet needs. In the current human resource for health crisis in Africa there is urgent need for community health volunteers (CHVs). Studies have highlighted problems of high attrition rates leading to high replacement training costs among CHVs. There is need for careful selection of volunteers that can serve long-term, once trained. This study was done to develop a volunteer assessment framework for recruitment of CHVs. The framework is based on identification intrinsic motives for volunteering that have been shown to be associated with long volunteer service. Methods: The assessment tool was developed by searching literature for theory based constructs and assessment items associated with volunteering. These constructs and items were synthesized into a proposed assessment framework. The framework was subjected to face content and construct validation in West Kenyan context in phase 1 of the study. The validated framework was tested for ability to differentiate between long serving volunteers and nonvolunteers matched by gender, age and residence. The 2 groups were presented with test items and asked to record their agreement on a scale of 1 to 5 on the reasons why people volunteer. Results: From literature we identified functional, role identity, and social exchange as theories underpinning volunteering. From these theories we identified 8 constructs to include in a proposed volunteer assessment framework. We tested the framework and although all the eight constructs satisfied internal consistency test only 5: altruism, materialism, social adjustment, esteem enhancement and career development were statistically significantly more associated with either volunteers or non-volunteers. Therefore, only these were included on the final volunteer assessment framework, for identification of long serving volunteers in the local context. Conclusion: We propose a volunteer assessment tool with the 5 constructs and 25 assessment items for identification and recruitment of CHVs, with motives consistent with long-term volunteer service. The final framework consists of altruistic (altruism, social adjustment, esteem enhancement) or egoistic (material gain and career development) constructs with 25 assessment statements. The frame work would able to identify individuals with altruistic motives to include and those with egoistic tendencies to exclude during a volunteer recruitment exercise.