Perspectives of health workers on annual performance appraisal: A study in primary health care

ABSTRACT

Introduction: Fair and effective performance appraisal can improve employee performance and healthcare quality. We aimed to examine the perspectives of health workers on the annual performance appraisal in the primary health care (PHC) setting of Hamadan, Iran.

Methods: This cross-sectional study was conducted on 185 health workers. Data were collected using the questionnaire developed based on an extensive literature review. The validity and reliability of which were confirmed. Statistical analysis was performed using descriptive statistics, analysis of variance (ANOVA), t test, and Pearson's correlation coefficient test.

Results: Health workers’ average score on the performance appraisal was 2.65 out of 5. The highest average score (3.15) was attributed to organizational context, while performance feedback had the lowest average score (2.21). There was a significant positive correlation between the overall score on the performance appraisal and job satisfaction (P < 0.001).

Conclusion: Health workers’ performance appraisal is facing a number of challenges, including ineffectiveness of appraisal data for performance improvement, lack of immediate and constructive feedback and unfair performance appraisal. As the ultimate goal of appraisal systems is to motivate employees for better health outcomes and performance improvement, these systems should be reviewed and revised.

KEYWORDS:

• Employee performance appraisal
• health workers
• primary health care
• performance improvement
• job satisfaction

Acknowledgements

The researchers would like to thank all the health workers and managers of Hamadan healthcare centers, who cooperated with us in this study.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Shahid Beheshti University of Medical Sciences [grant number 6281].

Notes on contributors

Soheila Majidi

Soheila Majidi has MSc in Health Service Management.

Abbas Daneshkohan

Dr Abbas Daneshkohan is an Assistant professor in Health Services Management.

Ehsan Zarei

Dr Ehsan Zarei is an Assistant professor in Health Services Management.

Tahereh Ashktorab

Dr Tahereh Ashktorab is a professor in Nursing.