Empowerment of Community Health Workers: Challenges and Interventions

Introduction: Community health workers (CHW) play a very important role in promoting basic health services. Therefore, in order to empower the communities they serve, it is essential that CHWs themselves are empowered. In this review, various studies that were conducted to empower CHWs in different parts of the world were examined.Methods: In this study, after setting the research questions, search key words were specified and suitable databases including Web of Science, Scopus, PubMed, SID, Magiran, IranDoc, Google Scholar were searched. After determining the entry and exit criteria and determining the scientific quality of studies, related articles were selected and finally, measures taken to empower the CHWs were summarizedResults: We identified ۱۵۹ papers that discussed CHWs empowerment. After reviewing the articles, ۹ of them were identified as related to the objectives of this study .The findings showed that in order to empower CHWs, old techniques such as lectures, seminars, and face-to-face meetings were used, and a large number of researchers also used new tools such as the Internet, mobile phones, and mobile applications to empower CHWs in different aspectsConclusions: This review presents the various measures taken to empower CHWs and showed that both old methods and new technologies are used for this purpose. However, the use of information & Communication Technology (ICT) in empowering CHWs is growing strongly. These findings may be useful for health policy formulation, program planning, and research.

کلیدواژه ها:

Empowering ، empowerment ، Community Health Workers