Louie H. Dagangon | Gemma G. Perez | Madeleine S. Tupas
The study aimed to find out the level of competence and training needs of Barangay Health Workers (BHW) of Davao City. The study utilized the descriptive-correlation and comparative research designs involving 270 BHWs and 15 BHW district presidents, conveniently selected as respondents of the study. A Visayan-translated questionnaire was constructed and tested for reliability for easy understanding by the respondents. The study revealed that majority of the respondents are middle-age adults, female, married, Roman Catholic, high school graduates, had 6-10 years of service as BHW and are city-paid. They are fairly competent on the different areas for training and development in terms of knowledge, skills and attitudes. The respondents identified all areas for training and development as “highly needed” wherein, the healthcare of children in terms of nutrition is rated the highest. On both the level of competence and training needs urgency of the respondents, there is no significant association on their demographic profile. Furthermore, there is no significant relationship between the training needs urgency and the level of competence of the respondents. Finally, District 9 was found to be consistently “not competent” in all areas of competency while District 12 was found to be “not competent” only in the areas of Skills and Attitude. Although the rest of the districts were found to be fairly and moderately competent, training is still needed in all districts.