To What Extent Do Free Healthcare Policies and Performance-Based Financing Reduce Out-of-Pocket Expenditures for Outpatient services? Evidence From a Quasi-experimental Study in Burkina Faso.

BACKGROUND: Burkina Faso has been implementing financing reforms towards universal health coverage (UHC) since 2006. Recently, the country introduced a performance-based financing (PBF) program as well as user fee removal (gratuité) policy for health services aimed at pregnant and lactating women and children under 5. We aim to assess the effect of gratuité and PBF policies on facility-based out-of-pocket expenditures (OOPEs) for outpatient services. METHODS: Our study is a controlled pre- and post-test design using healthcare facility data from the PBF program's impact evaluation collected in 2014 and 2017. We compared OOPE related to primary healthcare use incurred by children under 5 and individuals above 5 to assess the effect of the gratuité policy on OOPE. We further compared OOPE incurred by individuals residing in PBF districts and non-PBF districts to estimate the effect of the PBF on OOPE. Effects were estimated using difference-in-differences models, distinguishing the estimation of the probability of incurring OOPE from the estimation of the magnitude of OOPE using a generalized linear model (GLM). RESULTS: The proportion of children under 5 incurring OOPE declined significantly from 90% in 2014 to 3% in 2017. Concurrently, mean OOPE also decreased. Differences in both the probability of incurring OOPE and mean OOPE between PBF and non-PBF facilities were small. Our difference in differences estimates indicated that gratuité produced an 84% (CI -86%, -81%) reduction in the probability of incurring OOPE and reduced total OOPE by 54% (CI 63%, 42%). We detected no significant effects of PBF, either in reducing the probability of incurring OOPE or in its magnitude. CONCLUSION: User fee removal is an effective demand-side intervention for enhancing financial accessibility. As a supply-side intervention, PBF appears to have limited effects on reducing financial burden.

Improving the readiness and clinical quality of antenatal care - findings from a quasi-experimental evaluation of a performance-based financing scheme in Burkina Faso.

BACKGROUND: While maternal mortality has declined globally, it remains highest in low-income countries. High-quality antenatal care (ANC) can prevent or decrease pregnancy-related complications for mothers and newborns. The implementation of performance-based financing (PBF) schemes in Sub-Saharan Africa to improve primary healthcare provision commonly includes financial indicators linked to ANC service quality indicators. In this study, we examine changes in ANC provision produced by the introduction of a PBF scheme in rural Burkina Faso. METHODS: This study followed a quasi-experimental design with two data collection points comparing effects on ANC service quality between primary health facilities across intervention and control districts based on difference-in-differences estimates. Performance scores were defined using data on structural and process quality of care reflecting key clinical aspects of ANC provision related to screening and prevention pertaining to first and follow-up ANC visits. RESULTS: We found a statistically significant increase in performance scores by 10 percent-points in facilities' readiness to provide ANC services. The clinical care provided to different ANC client groups scored generally low, especially with respect to preventive care measures, we failed to observe any substantial changes in the clinical provision of ANC care attributable to the PBF. CONCLUSION: The observed effect pattern reflects the incentive structure implemented by the scheme, with a stronger focus on structural elements compared with clinical aspects of care. This limited the scheme's overall potential to improve ANC provision at the client level after the observed three-year implementation period. To improve both facility readiness and health worker performance, stronger incentives are needed to increase adherence to clinical standards and patient care outcomes.

Why did performance-based financing in Burkina Faso fail to achieve the intended equity effects? A process tracing study.

In recent years, performance-based financing (PBF) has attracted attention as a means of reforming provider payment mechanisms in low- and middle-income countries. Particularly in combination with demand-side interventions, PBF has been assumed to benefit also the most vulnerable and disadvantaged groups. However, impact evaluations have often found this not to be the case. In Burkina Faso, PBF was coupled with specific equity measures to enhance healthcare utilization among the ultra-poor, but failed to produce the expected effects. Our study used the process tracing methodology to unravel the reasons for the lack of impact produced by the equity measures. We relied on published evidence, secondary data analysis, and findings from a qualitative study to support or invalidate the hypothesized causal mechanism, that is the reconstructed theory of change of the equity measures. Our findings show how various contextual, design, and implementation challenges hindered the causal mechanism from unfolding as planned. These included issues with the identification and exemption of the ultra-poor on the demand side, and with financial issues and considerations on the supply side. In broader terms, our findings underline the difficulty in improving access to care for the ultra-poor, given the multifaceted and complex nature of barriers to care the most vulnerable face. From a methodological point of view, our study demonstrates the value and applicability of process tracing in complementing other forms of evaluation for complex interventions in global health.

No impact of performance-based financing on the availability of essential medicines in Burkina Faso: A mixed-methods study.

Access to safe, effective, and affordable essential medicines (EM) is critical to quality health services and as such has played a key role in innovative health system strengthening approaches such as Performance-based Financing (PBF). Available literature indicates that PBF can improve EM availability, but has not done so consistently in the past. Qualitative explorations of the reasons are yet scarce. We contribute to expanding the literature by estimating the impact of PBF on EM availability and stockout in Burkina Faso and investigating mechanisms of and barriers to change. The study used an explanatory mixed methods design. The quantitative study component followed a quasi-experimental design (difference-in-differences), comparing how EM availability and stockout had changed three years after implementation in 12 PBF and in 12 control districts. Qualitative data was collected from purposely selected policy and implementation stakeholders at all levels of the health system and community, using in-depth interviews and focus group discussions, and explored using deductive coding and thematic analysis. We found no impact of PBF on EM availability and stockouts in the quantitative data. Qualitative narratives converge in that EM supply had increased as a result of PBF, albeit not fully satisfactorily and sustainably so. Reasons include persisting contextual challenges, most importantly a public medicine procurement monopoly; design challenges, specifically a disconnect and disbalance in incentive levels between service provision and service quality indicators; implementation challenges including payment delays, issues around performance verification, and insufficient implementation of activities to strengthen stock management skills; and concurrently implemented policies, most importantly a national user fee exemption for children and pregnant women half way through the impact evaluation period. The case of PBF and EM availability in Burkina Faso illustrates the difficulty of incentivizing and effecting holistic change in EM availability in the presence of strong contextual constraints and powerful concurrent policies.

Looking into the performance-based financing black box: evidence from an impact evaluation in the health sector in Cameroon.

Performance-based financing (PBF) is a complex health systems intervention aimed at improving the coverage and quality of care. Several studies have shown a positive impact of PBF on health service coverage, often coupled with improvements in quality, but relatively little is known about the mechanisms driving those results. This article presents results of a randomized impact evaluation in Cameroon designed to isolate the role of specific components of the PBF approach with four study groups: (i) PBF with explicit financial incentives linked to results, (ii) direct financing with additional resources available for health providers not linked to performance, (iii) enhanced supervision and monitoring without additional resources and (iv) a control group. Overall, results indicate that, when compared with the pure control group, PBF in Cameroon led to significant increases in utilization for several services (child and maternal vaccinations, use of modern family planning), but not for others like antenatal care visits and facility-based deliveries. In terms of quality, PBF increased the availability of inputs and equipment, qualified health workers, led to a reduction in formal and informal user fees but did not affect the content of care. However, for many positively impacted outcomes, the differences between the PBF group and the group receiving additional financing not linked to performance are not significant, suggesting that additional funding rather than the explicit incentives might be driving improvements. In contrast, the intervention group offering enhanced supervision, coaching and monitoring without additional funding did not experience significant impacts compared to the control group.

Impact of Performance-Based Financing on effective coverage for curative child health services in Burkina Faso: Evidence from a quasi-experimental design.

OBJECTIVE: To evaluate the impact of Performance-Based Financing (PBF) on effective coverage of child curative health services in primary healthcare facilities in Burkina Faso. METHODS: An impact evaluation of a PBF pilot programme, using an experiment nested within a quasi-experimental design, was carried out in 12 intervention and 12 comparison districts in six regions of Burkina Faso. Across the 24 districts, primary healthcare facilities (537 both at baseline and endline) and households (baseline = 7978 endline = 7898) were surveyed. Within these households, 12 350 and 15 021 under-five-year-olds caretakers were interviewed at baseline and endline respectively. Linking service quality to service utilisation, we used difference-in-differences to estimate the impact of PBF on effective coverage of curative child health services. RESULTS: Our study failed to detect any effect of PBF on effective coverage. Looking specifically into quality of care indicators, we detected a positive effect of PBF on structural elements of quality of care related to general service readiness, but not on the overall facility quality score, capturing both service readiness and the content of childcare. CONCLUSION: The current study makes a unique contribution to PBF literature, as this is the first study assessing PBF impact on effective coverage for curative child health services in low-income settings. The absence of any significant effects of PBF on effective coverage suggests that PBF programmes require a stronger design focus on quality of care elements especially when implemented in a context of free healthcare policy.

Quality of clinical assessment and child mortality: a three-country cross-sectional study.

This analysis describes specific gaps in the quality of health care in Central Africa and assesses the association between quality of clinical care and mortality at age 2-59 months. Regionally representative facility and household surveys for the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Cameroon and Central African Republic were collected between 2012 and 2016. These data are novel in linking facilities with households in their catchment area. Compliance with diagnostic and danger sign protocols during sick-child visits was observed by trained assessors. We computed facility- and district-level compliance indicators for patients aged 2-59 months and used multivariate multi-level logistic regression models to estimate the association between clinical assessment quality and mortality at age 2-59 months in the catchment areas of the observed facilities. A total of 13 618 live births were analysed and 1818 sick-child visits were directly observed and used to rate 643 facilities. Eight percent of observed visits complied with 80% of basic diagnostic protocols, and 13% of visits fully adhered to select general danger sign protocols. A 10% greater compliance with diagnostic protocols was associated with a 14.1% (adjusted odds ratio (aOR) 95% CI: 0.025-0.244) reduction in the odds of mortality at age 2-59 months; a 10% greater compliance with select general danger sign protocols was associated with a 15.3% (aOR 95% CI: 0.058-0.237) reduction in the same odds. The results of this article suggest that compliance with recommended clinical protocols remains poor in many settings and improvements in mortality at age 2-59 months could be possible if compliance were improved.

Correction to: Responding to policy makers' evaluation needs: combining experimental and quasi-experimental approaches to estimate the impact of performance based financing in Burkina Faso.

Due to an error introduced during copyediting of this article [1], there are two corrections about the Figs. 1. The caption of Fig. 1 should be changed to "Study design". 2. The Fig. 2 is missing.

Responding to policy makers' evaluation needs: combining experimental and quasi-experimental approaches to estimate the impact of performance based financing in Burkina Faso.

BACKGROUND: The last two decades have seen a growing recognition of the need to expand the impact evaluation toolbox from an exclusive focus on randomized controlled trials to including quasi-experimental approaches. This appears to be particularly relevant when evaluation complex health interventions embedded in real-life settings often characterized by multiple research interests, limited researcher control, concurrently implemented policies and interventions, and other internal validity-threatening circumstances. To date, however, most studies described in the literature have employed either an exclusive experimental or an exclusive quasi-experimental approach. METHODS: This paper presents the case of a study design exploiting the respective advantages of both approaches by combining experimental and quasi-experimental elements to evaluate the impact of a Performance-Based Financing (PBF) intervention in Burkina Faso. Specifically, the study employed a quasi-experimental design (pretest-posttest with comparison) with a nested experimental component (randomized controlled trial). A difference-in-differences approach was used as the main analytical strategy. DISCUSSION: We aim to illustrate a way to reconcile scientific and pragmatic concerns to generate policy-relevant evidence on the intervention's impact, which is methodologically rigorous in its identification strategy but also considerate of the context within which the intervention took place. In particular, we highlight how we formulated our research questions, ultimately leading our design choices, on the basis of the knowledge needs expressed by the policy and implementing stakeholders. We discuss methodological weaknesses of the design arising from contextual constraints and the accommodation of various interests, and how we worked ex-post to address them to the best extent possible to ensure maximal accuracy and credibility of our findings. We hope that our case may be inspirational for other researchers wishing to undertake research in settings where field circumstances do not appear to be ideal for an impact evaluation. TRIAL REGISTRATION: Registered with RIDIE (RIDIE-STUDY-ID- 54412a964bce8 ) on 10/17/2014.

Determinants of individual healthcare expenditure: A cross-sectional analysis in rural Burkina Faso.

INTRODUCTION: Overwhelming evidence suggests that out-of-pocket expenditures (OOPEs) hamper access to care and impose a heavy economic burden across sub-Saharan Africa (SSA). Still, current user fee reduction and removal policies often target specific groups and services, leaving large sections of the population exposed to OOPE. METHODS: To estimate the magnitude and the determinants of OOPE for curative services in Burkina Faso, we used data from a household survey conducted in 24 districts between October 2013 and March 2014 (n = 7844). Given a context of medical pluralism, we purposely focused on total OOPE irrespective of type of care sought. We used a two-part regression model to estimate determinants of OOPE. RESULTS: Nearly 60% of those who reported an illness episode incurred a positive expenditure, with an average amount of 9362.52 FRS CFA per episode (1 USD = 577.94 FRS CFA). The first model revealed that the probability of incurring a positive OOPE was positively associated with perceived illness severity (P < .001), hospitalization (P < .001), and negatively associated with age (P = .026), distance (P = .060), and poorest wealth quintile (P = .054). The second model revealed that the magnitude of OOPE was positively associated with age (P = .087), education (P = .025), being household head (P = .015), having a chronic comorbidity (P = .025), perceived illness severity (P = .029), and hospitalization (P < .001) and negatively associated with symptoms unlikely to lead to adverse outcomes if not attended to in time (P = .056). CONCLUSION: Our findings indicate that OOPEs remain a problem in Burkina Faso and that broader spectrum policy reforms are urgently needed to ensure adequate financial protection.

Factors associated with misreporting in performance-based financing in Burkina Faso: Implications for risk-based verification.

Performance-based financing (PBF) has been piloted in many low- and middle-income countries (LMICs) as a strategy to improve access to and quality of health services. As a key component of PBF, quantity verification is carried out to ensure that reported data matches the actual number of services provided. However, cost concerns have led to a call for risk-based verification. Existing evidence suggests misreporting is associated with factors such as complexity of indicators, high service volume, and accepted error margin. In contrast, evidence on the association of key facility characteristics with misreporting in PBF is scarce. We contributed to filling this gap in knowledge by combining administrative data from a large-scale pilot PBF program in Burkina Faso with data from a health facility assessment in the context of an impact evaluation of the intervention. Our results showed the coexistence of both overreporting and underreporting and that misreporting varied by service indicator and health district. We also found that the number of clinical staff at the facility, the population size in the facility catchment area, and the distance between the facility and the district administration were associated with the probability of misreporting. We recommend further research of these factors in the move towards risk-based verification. In addition, given that our analysis identified relevant associations, but could not explain them, we recommend further qualitative inquiry into verification processes.

How much does community-based targeting of the ultra-poor in the health sector cost? Novel evidence from Burkina Faso.

BACKGROUND: Targeting efforts aimed at increasing access to care for the poorest by reducing to a minimum or completely eliminating payments at point of use are increasingly being adopted across low and middle income countries, within the framework of Universal Health Coverage policies. No evidence, however, is available on the real cost of designing and implementing these efforts. Our study aimed to fill this gap in knowledge through the systematic assessment of both the financial and economic costs associated with designing and implementing a pro-poor community-based targeting intervention across eight districts in rural Burkina Faso. METHODS: We conducted a partial retrospective economic evaluation (i.e. estimating costs, but not benefits) associated with the abovementioned targeting intervention. We adopted a health system perspective, including all costs incurred by the government and its development partners as well as costs incurred by the community when working as volunteers on behalf of government structures. To trace both financial and economic costs, we combined Activity-Based Costing with Resource Consumption Accounting. To this purpose, we consulted and extracted information from all relevant design/implementation documents and conducted additional key informant structured interviews to assess the resource consumption that was not valued in the documents. RESULTS: For the entire community-based targeting intervention, we estimated a financial cost of USD 587,510 and an economic cost of USD 1,213,447. The difference was driven primarily by the value of the time contributed by the community. Communities carried the main economic burden. With a total of 102,609 ultra-poor identified, the financial cost and the economic cost per ultra-poor person were respectively USD 5,73 and USD 11,83. CONCLUSION: The study is first of its kind to accurately trace the financial and economic costs of a community-based targeting intervention aiming to identify the ultra-poor. The financial costs amounted to USD 5,73 and the economic costs to USD 11,83 per ultra-poor person identified. The financial costs of almost USD 6 represents 21% of the per capita government expenditure on health.

Factors associated with effective coverage of child health services in Burkina Faso.

OBJECTIVE: To identify factors associated with both crude and effective health service coverage of under-fives in rural Burkina Faso. METHODS: In a cross-sectional study, 494 first-line health facilities, 7347 households and 12 497 under-fives were surveyed. Two sequential logistic random effects models were conducted to assess factors associated with crude and effective coverage. RESULTS: Of 614 children under-five with a reported illness episode, 427 (69.5%) received care at a health facility. Of those, 274 (64.1%) received care at a health facility providing at least the minimum threshold of service quality. We found that younger age, having a severe illness, shorter distance between household and health facility, and being from wealthier households were positively associated with crude coverage. In addition, low patient caseload and longer consultation had a positive association, while frequent facility supervisions had a negative association with effective coverage. Moreover, the nurse to clinical staff ratio at the health facility was positively associated with both crude and effective coverage. CONCLUSION: Our study found that crude coverage is associated with pre-disposing and enabling factors of health care access, while the availability of nurses is a strong predictor for both crude and effective coverage. This suggests that in the context of scarcity of resources, investing in human resources in health sector could be one of the priorities for decision-makers to ensure children in need not only access to healthcare but also good quality of care.

The use of video vignettes to measure health worker knowledge. Evidence from Burkina Faso.

The quality of care is a crucial determinant of good health outcomes, but is difficult to measure. Survey vignettes are a standard approach to measuring medical knowledge among health care providers. Given that written vignettes or knowledge tests may be too removed from clinical practice, particularly where "learning by doing" may be an important form of training, we developed a new type of provider vignette. It uses videos presenting a patient visiting the clinic with maternal/early childhood symptoms. We tested these video vignettes with current and future (students) health professionals in Burkina Faso. Participants indicated that the cases used were interesting, understandable and common. Their performance was consistent with expectations. Participants with greater training (medical doctors vs. nurses and midwives) and experience (health professionals vs. students) performed better. The video vignettes can easily be embedded in computers, tablets and smart phones; they are a convenient tool to measure provider knowledge; and they are cost-effective instruction and testing tools.

Measuring effective coverage of curative child health services in rural Burkina Faso: a cross-sectional study.

OBJECTIVE: To estimate both crude and effective curative health services coverage provided by rural health facilities to under 5-year-old (U5YO) children in Burkina Faso. METHODS: We surveyed 1298 child health providers and 1681 clinical cases across 494 primary-level health facilities, as well as 12 497 U5YO children across 7347households in the facilities' catchment areas. Facilities were scored based on a set of indicators along three quality-of-care dimensions: management of common childhood diseases, management of severe childhood diseases and general service readiness. Linking service quality to service utilisation, we estimated both crude and effective coverage of U5YO children by these selected curative services. RESULTS: Measured performance quality among facilities was generally low with only 12.7% of facilities surveyed reaching our definition of high and 57.1% our definition of intermediate quality of care. The crude coverage was 69.5% while the effective coverages indicated that 5.3% and 44.6% of children reporting an illness episode received services of only high or high and intermediate quality, respectively. CONCLUSION: Our study showed that the quality of U5YO child health services provided by primary-level health facilities in Burkina Faso was low, resulting in relatively ineffective population coverage. Poor adherence to clinical treatment guidelines combined with the lack of equipment and qualified clinical staff that performed U5YO consultations seemed to be contributors to the gap between crude and effective coverage.

Unraveling PBF effects beyond impact evaluation: results from a qualitative study in Cameroon.

INTRODUCTION: Performance-based financing (PBF) has acquired increased prominence as a means of reforming health system purchasing structures in low-income and middle-income countries. A number of impact evaluations have noted that PBF often produces mixed and heterogeneous effects. Still, little systematic effort has been channelled towards understanding what causes such heterogeneity, including looking more closely at implementation processes. METHODS: Our qualitative study aimed at closing this gap in knowledge by attempting to unpack the mixed and heterogeneous effects detected by the PBF impact evaluation in Cameroon to inform further implementation as the country scales up the PBF approach. We collected data at all levels of the health system (national, district, facility) and at the community level, using a mixture of in-depth interviews and focus group discussions. We combined deductive and inductive analytical techniques and applied analyst triangulation. RESULTS: Our findings indicate that heterogeneity in effects across facilities could be explained by pre-existing infrastructural weaknesses coupled with rigid administrative processes and implementation challenges, while heterogeneity across indicators could be explained by providers' practices, privileging services where demand-side barriers were less substantive. CONCLUSION: In light of the country's commitment to scaling up PBF, it follows that substantial efforts (particularly entrusting facilities with more financial autonomy) should be made to overcome infrastructural and demand-side barriers and to smooth implementation processes, thus, enabling healthcare providers to use PBF resources and management models to a fuller potential.

Street-level workers' inadequate knowledge and application of exemption policies in Burkina Faso jeopardize the achievement of universal health coverage: evidence from a cross-sectional survey.

BACKGROUND: Street-level workers play a key role in public health policies in Africa, as they are often the ones to ensure their implementation. In Burkina Faso, the State formulated two different user-fee exemption policies for indigents, one for deliveries (2007), and one for primary healthcare (2009). The objective of this study was to measure and understand the determinants of street-level workers' knowledge and application of these exemption measures. METHODS: We used cross-sectional data collected between October 2013 and March 2014. The survey targeted 1521 health workers distributed in 498 first-line centres, 18 district hospitals, 5 regional hospitals, and 11 private or other facilities across 24 districts. We used four different random effects models to identify factors associated with knowledge and application of each of the above-mentioned exemption policies. RESULTS: Only 9.2% of workers surveyed knew of the directive exempting the worst-off, and only 5% implemented it. Knowledge and application of the delivery exemption were higher, with 27% of all health workers being aware of the delivery exemption directive and 24.2% applying it. Mobile health workers were found to be consistently more likely to apply both exemptions. Health workers who were facility heads were significantly more likely to know about the indigent exemption for primary health care and to apply it. Health workers in districts with higher proportions of very poor people were significantly more likely to know about and apply the delivery exemption. Nearly 60% of respondents indicated either 5% or 10% as the percentage of people they would deem adequate to target for exemption. CONCLUSION: This quantitative study confirmed earlier qualitative results on the importance of training and informing health workers and monitoring the measures targeting equity, to ensure compliance with government directives. The local context (e.g., hierarchy, health system, interventions) and the ideas that street-level workers have about the policy instruments can influence their effective implementation. Methods for remunerating health workers and health centres also need to be adapted to ensure equity measures are applied to achieve universal healthcare.

Determinants of unmet need for family planning in rural Burkina Faso: a multilevel logistic regression analysis.

BACKGROUND: Unmet need for family planning has implications for women and their families, such as unsafe abortion, physical abuse, and poor maternal health. Contraceptive knowledge has increased across low-income settings, yet unmet need remains high with little information on the factors explaining it. This study assessed factors associated with unmet need among pregnant women in rural Burkina Faso. METHOD: We collected data on pregnant women through a population-based survey conducted in 24 rural districts between October 2013 and March 2014. Multivariate multilevel logistic regression was used to assess the association between unmet need for family planning and a selection of relevant demand- and supply-side factors. RESULTS: Of the 1309 pregnant women covered in the survey, 239 (18.26%) reported experiencing unmet need for family planning. Pregnant women with more than three living children [OR = 1.80; 95% CI (1.11-2.91)], those with a child younger than 1 year [OR = 1.75; 95% CI (1.04-2.97)], pregnant women whose partners disapproves contraceptive use [OR = 1.51; 95% CI (1.03-2.21)] and women who desired fewer children compared to their partners preferred number of children [OR = 1.907; 95% CI (1.361-2.672)] were significantly more likely to experience unmet need for family planning, while health staff training in family planning logistics management (OR = 0.46; 95% CI (0.24-0.73)] was associated with a lower probability of experiencing unmet need for family planning. CONCLUSION: Findings suggest the need to strengthen family planning interventions in Burkina Faso to ensure greater uptake of contraceptive use and thus reduce unmet need for family planning.

Measuring health workers' motivation composition: validation of a scale based on Self-Determination Theory in Burkina Faso.

BACKGROUND: Although motivation of health workers in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs) has become a topic of increasing interest by policy makers and researchers in recent years, many aspects are not well understood to date. This is partly due to a lack of appropriate measurement instruments. This article presents evidence on the construct validity of a psychometric scale developed to measure motivation composition, i.e., the extent to which motivation of different origin within and outside of a person contributes to their overall work motivation. It is theoretically grounded in Self-Determination Theory (SDT). METHODS: We conducted a cross-sectional survey of 1142 nurses in 522 government health facilities in 24 districts of Burkina Faso. We assessed the scale's validity in a confirmatory factor analysis framework, investigating whether the scale measures what it was intended to measure (content, structural, and convergent/discriminant validity) and whether it does so equally well across health worker subgroups (measurement invariance). RESULTS: Our results show that the scale measures a slightly modified version of the SDT continuum of motivation well. Measurements were overall comparable between subgroups, but results indicate that caution is warranted if a comparison of motivation scores between groups is the focus of analysis. CONCLUSIONS: The scale is a valuable addition to the repository of measurement tools for health worker motivation in LMICs. We expect it to prove useful in the quest for a more comprehensive understanding of motivation as well as of the effects and potential side effects of interventions intended to enhance motivation.

Factors Associated with Contraceptive Use among Women of Reproductive Age in Rural Districts of Burkina Faso.

Given the current low contraceptive use and corresponding high levels of unwanted pregnancies leading to induced abortions and poor maternal health outcomes among rural populations, a detailed understanding of the factors that limit contraceptive use is essential. Our study investigated household and health facility factors that influence contraceptive use decisions among rural women in rural Burkina Faso. We collected data on fertile non-pregnant women in 24 rural districts in 2014. Of 8,657 women, 1,098 used a modern contraceptive. Women having a living son, a child younger than one year, and household wealth were more likely to use modern contraceptives. Women in polygamous marriages and women living at least 5 kilometers from a health facility were less likely to use contraception. We conclude that modern contraceptive use remains weak, hence, programs aiming to encourage contraceptive use must address barriers at both the health facility and the household level.