A realist perspective on optimizing community health workers' roles and functions to deliver integrated people-centred care.

ABSTRACT: Community Health Workers (CHWs) play a crucial role to support health care delivery in underserved communities. Although the value of CHWs' contributions is widely recognised, there is limited evidence on the mechanisms that enable CHWs to deliver people-centred care. Using a realist evaluation approach guided by WHO's Integrated People-Centred Health Services (IPCHS) framework, the study focused on how different contexts and mechanisms interact to align with the IPCHS strategies to shape CHWs' capacity to deliver people-centred care. This realist qualitative study was conducted in five rural communities in KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa. Data was collected through structured observations of CHWs' interactions with households; interviews with CHWs, service users, household decision makers, ou

SUBMITTER: Buthelezi UE 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC12407478 | biostudies-literature | 2025

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature