Job satisfaction of nurses and identifying factors of job satisfaction in Slovenian Hospitals.
OBJECTIVE
To determine the level of job satisfaction of nursing professionals in Slovenian hospitals and factors influencing job satisfaction in nursing.


METHODS
The study included 4 hospitals selected from the hospital list comprising 26 hospitals in Slovenia. The employees of these hospitals represent 29.8% and 509 employees included in the study represent 6% of all employees in nursing in Slovenian hospitals. One structured survey questionnaire was administered to the leaders and the other to employees, both consisting 154 items evaluated on a 5 point Likert-type scale. We examined the correlation between independent variables (age, number of years of employment, behavior of leaders, personal characteristics of leaders, and managerial competencies of leaders) and the dependent variable (job satisfaction - satisfaction with the work, coworkers, management, pay, etc) by applying correlation analysis and multivariate regression analysis. In addition, factor analysis was used to establish characteristic components of the variables measured.


RESULTS
We found a medium level of job satisfaction in both leaders (3.49±0.5) and employees (3.19±0.6), however, there was a significant difference between their estimates (t=3.237; P=lt;0.001). Job satisfaction was explained by age (Plt;0.05; β=0.091), years of employment (Plt;0.05; β=0.193), personal characteristics of leaders (Plt;0.001; β=0.158), and managerial competencies of leaders (Plt;0.000; β=0.634) in 46% of cases. The factor analysis yielded four factors explaining 64% of the total job satisfaction variance.


CONCLUSIONS
Satisfied employees play a crucial role in an organization's success, so health care organizations must be aware of the importance of employees' job satisfaction. It is recommended to monitor employees' job satisfaction levels on an annual basis.
University of Maribor, Faculty of Health Sciences, Maribor, Slovenia. mateja.lorber@uni-mb.si
Mateja
M
Lorber
Brigita
B
Skela Savič
D000328:Adult; D004636:Emergency Service, Hospital; D005163:Factor Analysis, Statistical; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007588:Job Satisfaction; D007857:Leadership; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D009042:Motivation; D015999:Multivariate Analysis; D009726:Nurses / Q000523:psychology*; D012044:Regression Analysis; D012307:Risk Factors; D017524:Slovenia; D013192:Staff Development; D013223:Statistics as Topic; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires; D055815:Young Adult