Health human resource turnover among township health centers in Hubei province

Objective To describe the characteristics and influence factors of the health human resource turnover among township health centers in Hubei province and to provide suggestions for the improvement of health human resource.Methods A questionnaire survey was conducted among 90 township health centers to collect information on personnel turnover from 2008 to 2012 in Hubei province.SPSS 12.0 was used in data analyses.Results Township health centers employed 569(male:40.42%) professionals in 2008-2012,of which 69.42% were at or under 35 years of age and only 4.04% were over 45 years of age;15.11% had college or higher education and 36.91% had technical secondary school or lower education;12.3% had intermediate professional title and 47.63% had no professional title;31.99% took clinical medical work and 26.89% took nursing work.During the same period,there were 826 professionals left the township health centers(male:47.94%).Of the professionals departing,26.27% were at age of ≤35 years;33.41% were at the age of ≥45 years;8.4% had college or higher education and 50.7% had technical secondary school or lower education;35.84% had intermediate professional title and 8.13% had no professional title;40.14% were engaged in clinical medicine and 25.18% engaged in nursing work.There was no statistically significant gender difference(χ²=7.589，P>0.05) between the inflow and the outflow of the professionals,but there were statistically significant differences in age,education,professional title,and job post distributions(χ²=374.347,46.564，317.336，23.068;P<0.05 for all).Conclusion The health human resource turnover relevant to township hospitals and health centers was irrational and there was a serious loss of qualified medical professionals for the medical facilities at township level.