Job Satisfaction among Nurses Working in Different Setting

Introduction

Job satisfaction is defined as the amount of positivity expressed with regard to a job (Adam & Bond, 2000). It is also a common feeling that one has regarding his job or how they feel about their job (McNeese-Smith & Crook, 2003).

Nurses’ job satisfaction and their likelihood to stay in the profession are huge issues to the higher management as the demand for nurses is more than the supply available (McGlynn, Griffin, Donahue & Fitzpatrick, 2012). When one is not satisfied in their work environment, nurses are more likely to resign and leave their workplace (Ma, Samuels & Alexander, 2003).

Nurses’ work environment has an impact on their job satisfaction. Nurse reported higher emotional and physical exhaustion when they are required to look after more patients than what they can handle (Sheward, Hunt, Hagen, MacLeod & Ball, 2005). The quality of nursing care for patients is impacted by nurse’s job satisfaction (McNeese-Smith, 2000).

Nurse’s job dissatisfaction may indirectly lead to shortage of nurses with consequences of increased patient to nurse ratio, patients having to wait longer and last of all, burnout among nurses (Ma et al, 2003). Job satisfaction is subjective and varies differently among each and every nurses and it can change with time (Cumbey & Alexander, 1998).

There are several factors which might affect job satisfaction of nurses, mainly nurses’ related or environment related. Nurses’ related factors are their behaviours, attitudes, character and life satisfaction (Manojlovich & Spence Laschinger, 2002). Life satisfaction are deemed as how satisfied the nurses are in their life and whether their needs are met (Demerouti, Bakker, Nachreiner & Schaufeli, 2000).

Many studies have been done over the last five years regarding nurse job satisfaction and medical-surgical settings, however there is a lack of studies on psychiatric nurses and their settings (Hanrahan, Aiken, McClaine & Hanlon, 2010). Problem faced in a psychiatric settings are overflowing of patients in the acute wards (Virtanen et al., 2008), frequent turnover rate of patients, increase incidence of aggressive behaviour outbreak, seclusion needed, and restraint uses (Steinert, Bergbauer, Schmid, & Gebhardt, 2007) and increasing reports of events like work-related injuries and error when administering medication (Grasso, Rothschild, Jordan, & Jayaram, 2005). These problems are further worsening by a shortage of nurses working in the psychiatric settings (The Annapolis Coalition on the Behavioral Health Workforce, 2006).

Literature Review

Interpersonal Relationships

Nurses’ relationships with their co-workers are some major factors that can affect their job satisfaction, and several studies (Adams & Bond, 2000, Newman & Maylor, 2002, Dunn et al.