An Analysis of Factors Influencing Job Satisfaction of Mid-Career Nurses at Acute Care Hospitals

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to examine factors related to job satisfaction of mid-career nurses working at acute care hospitals from aspects of intrinsic job satisfaction facet, extrinsic job Satisfaction facet, and individual attributes. The participants were 607 nurses working for 4-10 years at acute care hospitals. Based on Takahashi's criteria that developed from Herzberg's theory of motivation, two factors, “work itself” and “recognition,” from intrinsic job satisfaction facet, and three factors “organization's administration and policy,” “expected level of achievement for job placement,” and “quantitative workload,” from extrinsic job satisfaction facet were used to explain job satisfaction. The questionnaire consisted of 18 items of JIG (Job in General) original scale, 29 items of “recognition,” 11 items of “quantitative workload” from NIOSH Generic Job Stress Questionnaire, and 48 items of the Japanese version of Stamps's job satisfaction scale by Ozaki. Our main results were: of the seven factors of job satisfaction, “mutual influences among nursing staff” and “position in the organization” were rated highly, while “salary” and “nursing work” were rated low. Pearson's correlation coefficients showed that “work itself(r=0.561),” “recognition(r=0.531),” and “quantitative workload(r=-0.097)”were related to job satisfaction. Results of multiple regression analyses indicated that job satisfaction was not predicted by“organization's administration and policy,” “expected level of achievement for job placement,” nor by individual attributes. For the improvement of job satisfaction, the importance of enriching the substance of the work itself, and of recognition by others, particularly superiors, was clarified. Also suggested was the necessity of alleviating the quantitative workload.