Effectiveness of a Human Capacity-building Initiative on Improving the Health of Rural Communities

Abstract Background: Given the major role of capacity building in improving the health of rural communities and due to the lack of studies performed on this issue, we aimed to investigate the effectiveness of educational and capacity building intervention on staff communication, job motivation skills, educational performance, and knowledge and behavior of health house clients in Ardabil city’s rural communities.Methods: The pretest-posttest nonequivalent control group design was conducted. In this study, convenience sampling was performed and a total of 220 health care recipients and 108 staff were surveyed in both interventional and control groups. The intervention was designed based on four approaches for capacity building introduced by Crisp et al. Data were collected using three questionnaires including knowledge and practice about healthy lifestyle, communication skills self-assessment, and Wright's job motivation. All statistical analyses were fulfilled using IBM SPSS Statistics software.Results: At the end of the study; the mean scores of knowledge and practice of referrals to health centers about a healthy lifestyle and communication skills and job motivation of healthcare worker increased statistically in the intervention group compared to the baseline (p0.05). Following 3 months of intervention, there were significant differences among the study groups (p< 0.05).Conclusion: Capacity building comprehensive interventions can help in identifying rural community health needs, increasing knowledge and practice of rural communities' residents about health issues, promoting health workers empowerment, and improving health workers' motivation.