Community health workers experiences of a personal development programme to improve their emotional well-being

Abstract

Community health workers have become significant to healthcare services provided to communities. They also played a vital role in the prevention and screening of patients during the 2020 Coronavirus pandemic. As such, the role that they play can contribute to the health of the community. Community health workers’ own emotional well-being can be affected by the challenges they face in their work. They often have to deliver services and provide treatment to community members that are marginalised and have limited access to official institutions. Community health workers are faced with the challenge of having to provide in community members’ basic needs along with providing healthcare services and health education. In other words, they often have to go beyond their role as community health workers to support community members. To assist in understanding how their emotional well-being can be improved, this qualitative study was conducted to explore community health workers experiences of a personal development programme to improve their emotional well-being. Data was collected through semi-structured interviews with eight participants using purposive sampling. A thematic analysis was used to analyse the data by identifying themes. Five main themes were developed from the analysis, namely: 1. problems and challenges in their community work, 2. intrapersonal skills, 3. interpersonal skills, 4. relationship with the environment/work situation, and 5. future interventions. Findings show that the challenges community health workers experience in their personal and professional life influence their emotional well-being negatively. The themes also encompassed the community health workers positive experience of the personal development programme, including the skills and knowledge that they have acquired to assist with the improvement of their emotional well-being. These findings were noteworthy and can be used to develop interventions to community health workers in different areas and contexts.