Hospital reform and staff morale in South Africa: a case study of Dr Yusuf Dadoo Hospital

Objectives: This study explored major factors that influenced staff motivation at a district hospital in South Africa following hospital reforms and comparison of these factors across the two main staff categories.Design: This study was a cross-sectional descriptive survey.Settings and subjects: This study included all medical and nursing staff working at the district hospital.Outcome measures: A semi-structured questionnaire coded for anonymity was used. It comprised three sections: the introduction, demographic information and a list of factors to which participants responded by indicating their level of agreement or disagreement using the Likert's scale. The questionnaire's reliability was confirmed using Cronbach's coefficient alpha with a value of 0.9.Results: Of the 179 participants, 122 returned the questionnaires. This equated to a response rate of 68%. The staff expressed more demotivation than motivation. Major factors that played a role were institutional in character, namely poor manag...