The relationship between personal traits and job satisfaction among Taiwanese community health volunteers.
OBJECTIVE
The purpose of the study was to understand the relationship between job satisfaction and personal traits in health volunteers in one community in Taiwan.


BACKGROUND
Among different kinds of community resources, the human resource is most essential for the process of developing healthy communities and cities. However, it is not easy to keep voluntary workers as part of health programmes even though they have been trained. Previous research has shown that to increase the job satisfaction of such a person, the volunteer needs to improve effectively his/her need to achieve. The need to achieve is an important part of a person's personal traits.


METHODS
A cross-sectional survey design was used to interview 317 health volunteers in various community health centres in I-lan county, northern Taiwan. The research instruments of this study included the 'locus of control orientation scale' for personality measurement, the 'achievement orientation scale' and the 'job satisfaction scale'.


RESULTS
Most of the sample volunteers were female with an average age of 49.55 years; the majority was married and living with their spouses. In terms of the volunteers' personal traits, most of them are internal control orientation. The job satisfaction of the volunteers who took part in this research was extremely high. Significant variables correlating with job satisfaction in this study were gender, educational level, religious preference, participation in training, working to promote community health, the willingness to work, the frequency of participating in job training, and cooperation with other volunteer partners. The explainable variance for the prediction of job satisfaction from a combination of achievement orientation and the frequency of collaboration with other people was 9.1%.


CONCLUSIONS
The results suggest that there is a need to strengthen cooperative relationships among volunteer by initiating well-planned volunteer training programmes and growth groups with the aim of enhancing their interpersonal relationships.
Lin
Mei-Chih
MC
Purchase & Maintenance, Dong Guang Junior High School, Yilan County, Taiwan.
Li
I-chuan
IC
Lin
Kuan-chia
KC
D000704:Analysis of Variance; D001291:Attitude of Health Personnel; D003150:Community Health Workers / Q000193:education / Q000523:psychology*; D003299:Cooperative Behavior; D003430:Cross-Sectional Studies; D005260:Female; D006301:Health Services Needs and Demand; D006801:Humans; D007318:Inservice Training; D007389:Internal-External Control; D007400:Interprofessional Relations; D007588:Job Satisfaction; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D009042:Motivation; D015404:Nursing Methodology Research; D016272:Occupational Health; D010551:Personality; D010563:Personnel Turnover; D011361:Professional Competence; D020377:Self Efficacy; D012959:Socioeconomic Factors; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires; D013624:Taiwan; D014838:Volunteers / Q000193:education / Q000523:psychology*