Job satisfaction survey among health centers staff

Abstract

Background:

Due to the importance of health care organizations with significant responsibility for prevention and care, assessment of job satisfaction among health care staff is essential. Quality of health services will be decreased provided they are not satisfied.

Materials and Methods:

This study was a cross-sectional analysis of health care staff in Khomeinishahr (centers, buildings, and networks) If they had at least 6 months work experience, they could enter the study. Data included a two-part questionnaire with a standardized questionnaire, demographic variables, and Smith job descriptive index, which is a questionnaire with six domains. Reliability was obtained for each domain and its validity was reported 0.93.

Findings:

The results showed an overall satisfaction score averages 43.55 ± 12.8 (from 100). Job satisfaction score was not significantly different between the sexes. However, within the current attitude toward job satisfaction, men scores was better than women (P = 0.001). Highest score in job satisfaction was related to relationships with colleagues and lowest score was related to the income, benefits, and job promotion. The more the years of work, the less the job satisfaction was. The attitude toward the current job had a direct relationship with income (P = 0.01). There was a significant inverse relationship between educational level and job satisfaction in domains promotion, income, and benefits (P = 0.01). The staff with higher education levels was less satisfied with income and job promotion qualification.

Conclusion:

Managers should focus on job qualification to increase job satisfaction and improve the quality of work.

INTRODUCTION

Employees and working labors are considered as wealth of each organization. Effectiveness and performance of organizations depend upon effectiveness and performance human force of that organization. One of the important issues in every organization is staff's job satisfaction. High spirit of individual can cause effectiveness and efficacy of individual in an organization.[1] The simplest definition of job satisfaction includes a positive and useful emotional feeling created in individual after implementation of task; however, job satisfaction is not a single factor, but an intermediate and complex relation of job tasks, responsibility, actions and reactions, motivations, encouragements and confidents.[2] Nagy believed that measuring job satisfaction has two primary ways: One way is simple measurement or overall job satisfaction. In many circumstances, these overall measurements obtained only through a question: E.g., “Generally, how much are you satisfied from your job?" The other way of job satisfaction measurement is through multifaceted scales which are used for underlying specific and separate measurements of a job such as supervision, salary and so on.[3] Job satisfaction is not a unit concept, and it should be considered as a collection of mixed tasks, roles, relations and rewards which are mutually interrelated together.[4] The time we say someone has a high job satisfaction, in fact we mean that he/she likes his/her job very much; has positive feelings towards it and through which could satisfy his/her needs.[5] Job satisfaction in one hand increases self-confidence and better implementation of tasks with higher interest and on the other hands improves the relations as well as reduces the mental pressure of staff[6] and ensures their field of physical, psychological and social health.[7] Lack of job satisfaction also decreases the spirit of staff; the low spirit indicators are: Anxiety, work absence, delay, withdrawal, and early retirement. This issue is very undesirable in an organization.[8] Studies have shown that unsatisfied people are more prone to events.[9,10] According to Habib et al. (2002) in a study titled as “Job satisfaction and mental health among employees of a public hospital,” there was an inverse significant correlation between job satisfaction and general health.[11] The study of Masoudasl et al. showed that the highest factors in job satisfaction is related to sense of responsibility in task, existence of appropriate conditions for work environment and job security.[12] Studies have mentioned different results from the effect of individual-demographic characteristics on job satisfaction. The study of Jahani et al.on reviewing job satisfaction in hospital staff of Arak in 2009 showed that age, work experience, and the number of family members had no effect on job satisfaction. However, there was a significant correlation between satisfaction and gender, educational level, and type of employment.[13] Since job satisfaction is of necessary and valuable pillars of health promotion, and due to important of responsibility health care organizations have in prevention, care and treatment, job satisfaction is of high importance in the community. Besides, job dissatisfaction among its staff would have very serious consequences. This not only impairs patient care tasks quantitatively, but also does it reduce the patients and staff's spirit qualitatively and consequently influences the quality of health cares. Therefore, the present study aimed to review job satisfaction of health centers staff of Khomeinishahr, Isfahan, Iran in 2010.

MATERIALS AND METHODS

This was a cross-sectional descriptive analytical study. Sampling was done through census method. Out of 226 health staff, 197 individuals participated in the study such as staff of Province Health Network, health centers, health houses, and health bases of Khomeinishahr who at least worked for 6 months and were willing to complete the inventory. Data collection tools in the study was a two-part inventory; (a) Demographic characteristics including age, sex, marital status, employment status, education, and income and (b) Smith's job descriptive index (JDI). This inventory is one of the reliable tools to measure job satisfaction developed by Smith, Kendall, and Hulin in 54 questions and 6 domains; 11 questions about the nature of job (attitude toward job), 13 questions about opportunities and promotions, 6 questions about supervising, 10 questions about co-workers, 7 questions about benefits and salary and 7 questions about conditions of workplace. The scoring scale was similar to 4°Likert scale from completelydisagreetocompletelyagree and results analysis also was done through Smith's guide. Job satisfaction is resulted from various aspects of job such as payment, promotions opportunities, supervising, co-workers, and workplace factors including, style of matrons, job conditions, and job benefits. Internal validity of JDI through Cronbach's alpha obtained 0.80 for job nature, 0.89 for supervision, 0.87 for co-workers, 0.90 for promotions, 0.90 for salary and benefits, 0.80 for workplace, and the reliability of JDI also was 0.93.[14] Smith's JDI was first standardized in ShahidChamran University of Ahwaz. The original form was translated by Shekarshekan and its reliability and validity calculated 0.94 and 0.96 respectively.[15] The present study was the results of approved research project by Isfahan University of Medical Sciences in 2010. The study objectives were explained to them and after obtaining their consent, they voluntarily participated in the study. After data collection, they were analyzed through Software SPSS by Pearsoncorrelation test, Spearmancorrelation, ANOVAand independent t-tests.

RESULTS

In this study, 71.6% were women and 28.4% were men. In terms of marital status, 13.7% were single, 84.8% were married and 1.5% were divorced or widowed. Mean deviation of age was 37.3 ± 6.7 years. The minimum and maximum ages were 22 and 56 years respectively. In this study, 61 employees were staffpersonnel (some of them also simultaneously worked in health bases or centers) and 136 employees were non-staffpersonnel (i.e., those who exclusively worked in health houses, bases, and centers). In terms of education, 50.8% of them were MSc and higher. In terms of employment, 73.6% were formal employees and the rest were contract or licensed employees. The minimum and maximum working experience among staff of Province health center were 6 months and 29 years. Mean and SD of staff's working experience was 13.58 ± 7.13 years. Mean of the number of children was 1.6 ± 0.9 [Table 1]. Overall job satisfaction (out of 100) obtained 43.55 ± 12.8. The highest job satisfaction was related to co-workers’ domain and the lowest was related to salary and benefits.

Table 1.

Mean score of overall job satisfaction in terms of various variables

Independent t-test showed that overall job satisfaction had no significant difference among men and women. However, job satisfaction of men was higher than women in job nature domain (P = 0.001). Pearsoncorrelation test showed that there was no significant correlation between job satisfaction and age, working experience, income and the number of children. The results showed that the higher the educational level, the lower the satisfaction from salary and promotion conditions. Moreover, there was no significant correlation between marital status and the score of overall job satisfaction and its domain. Job satisfaction of individuals had no significant difference with employment status. ANOVA with repeated observations showed that mean job satisfaction was not similar in various domains (P < 0.001).

Separating the studied domains, the mean score of job satisfaction by order of preference obtained as the following: Coworker 78.59 ± 22.43, supervision 41.22 ± 17.65, opportunities for promotion 40.21 ± 25.17, job nature 36.25 ± 17.9, physical condition and workplace 35.72 ± 20.24 and salary and benefits 27.43 ± 22.84. The highest and lowest domains were coworkers and benefits respectively [Table 2].

Table 2.

Mean score of overall job satisfaction and domains (out of 100)

DISCUSSION

This study aimed to review the job satisfaction rate of health center staff of Khomeinishahr in 2010. Due to important of responsibility health care organizations have in prevention, care and treatment, job satisfaction is of high importance. Job dissatisfaction among staff of such organizations causes emotional disconnection, apathy and decreased quality of services, which consequently would have serious outcomes.

In the present study, mean score of job satisfaction obtained 43.55 ± 12.8. In the study of Safi, mean and SD of overall job satisfaction among the faculty members was 72.6 ± 16.91.[16] In the study of Rafiei et al., mean and SD of job satisfaction reported 60.72 ± 11.51.[17] Higher mean job satisfaction perhaps is related to different job group (faculty members) and also different geographical location. In the study of Lavasani on nurses, mean score of job satisfaction reported 42.61 ± 9.23,[18] which was close to the mean of the present study. In the present study, there was no significant correlation between marital status and score of overall job satisfaction and its domains. The study results of Jahani was in accordance with our study.[19] However, in the study of Mirzraie et al., there was a significant correlation between marital status and job satisfaction; so that married individuals had higher job satisfaction.[20] In the present study, there was no significant correlation between job satisfaction rate and age, and sex. However, job satisfaction was higher among men than among women (P = 0.001). The results of this study were in accordance with the studies of Haji Babaei and Habib,[11,21] which can be attributed to work in non-staff centers. In the present study, 80% of women worked in health centers, bases and houses, and 20% worked in staff centers, and non-staff personnel assessed their attitude toward job as repetitive boring, monotonous, and non-attractive job, which indicated low job attitude of non-staff personnel than staff personnel.

Age and sex in the study of Mehrabian et al.,[22] and age in the study of Dawal-Taha significantly affected on job satisfaction.[23] The study results of Narimani was in accordance with the results of the present study; in his study, there was no significant difference between the two sexes in terms of job satisfaction.[24] In the study of Beikleik, job satisfaction of men generally was higher than women.[25] In the study of Tazhibi, women were more satisfied than men.[26] In the studies of Tazhibi and Raeissi, job satisfaction of women was more than in men and also single than married individuals.[26,27] In our study, job satisfaction inversely was correlated with education. Those with higher education in health centers sometimes received lower salary and benefits compared to his/her co-worker with lower educational level. This result is justifiable based on theory of expected value. According to this theory, when an individual feels equality between inputs and outputs, a satisfaction motivation would be create in him and vice versa. Individuals with higher education feel inequality in this regard; therefore they would be satisfied harder. This result was in accordance with the studies of Tazhibi and Habib.[11,26] However, it was not in accordance with the study of Narimani et al.[24] and Mehrabian et al.[22] In the present study, the highest and lowest job satisfaction were related to co-workers and salary domains (as it was seen in most of other studies), which was in accordance with the studies of Habib and Shirazi, Mirkamali and Heydari.[11,28,29] Intimate relationship with co-workers caused emotional solidarity and had a protective role against causes of job dissatisfaction. In the present study, there was no relationship between job satisfaction with income and working experience. The study of Habib supported this result.[11]

In the present study, there was no significant relationship between job satisfaction and working experience; however, there was a significant and inverse correlation between job satisfaction from supervision and working experience. The results of this study were in accordance with the study of Tazhibi. In his study, the higher the working experience, the higher the job dissatisfaction.[26] It seems that with increase of working experience, the expectation of supervisors would be higher so that they expect their ideas used in decisions and their work is appreciated; but sometimes administrative hierarchy will not let these expectation met.

Most of the studies had reviewed the job satisfaction among health center staff and it seems that they are at the forefront of prevention and have a major role in providing educational and preventive services for health promotion; but they have been ignored. The strength point of this study was reviewing job satisfaction of all the health center staff in health network. One of the weak points of this study was lack of reviewing job satisfaction with stress, job commitment, anxiety, job absence, withdrawal and early retirement.

Our research recommendations for further studies are implementation of this study in a wider level, reviewing the correlation between job characteristics with job commitment and reviewing job characteristics with job stress. Our suggestion for promoting staff's job satisfaction is that in job designing, the tasks should be challenging enough so that individual feels satisfied and also the improvement of their livelihood should be considered as well in order to promote their productivity and services providing in health field of the community.