Abstract

The purpose of the study was to establish the extent to which community capacity building influenced sustainability of palliative care projects in Mayuge district. Specifically, the study strived to establish the extent to which top down, bottom up and community organizational approaches of capacity building could influence the sustainability of palliative care projects. We used a cross-sectional survey design to cover a population of 150 respondents comprising of NGO officials, Health centre IV and Health centre III palliative care personnel, district health team officials and patients on palliative care. Using a self administered questionnaire and in-depth interviews emerging data was analyzed using simple descriptive statistics like mean and standard deviations, Pearson’s correlation and regression analyses. We report that top down organizational capacity building approach had a high positive significant relationship with project sustainability and it predicted 23.4% of the variance in project sustainability. Bottom up organisational capacity building approach had a high positive significant relationship and it predicted 25.7% of the variance in project sustainability. Finally, community organizing approaches had a very high positive significant relationship with project sustainability and it predicted 57.2% of the variance. We conclude that the financial, technical and managerial self reliance aspects of project sustainability are significantly dependant on the kind of efforts by the management teams of the NGO. By building capacity through top down, bottom up and community organizing approaches, there is a high possibility of ensuring sustainability. We therefore draw a number of managerial and theoretical implications whose scope appeals to a wide range of audiences.

Key words: Capacity building approaches, project, sustainability, palliative care.