title: Occupational therapists' job satisfaction in a changing hospital organisation--a time-geography-based study.
abstract: OBJECTIVE
  To investigate occupational therapists' job satisfaction under a changing regime by using a time-geographic approach focusing on the therapists' everyday working lives.
  
  
  METHODS
  Nine occupational therapists at the Copenhagen University Hospital, Gentofte, Denmark.
  
  
  METHODS
  A mixed-method design was employed. Occupational therapists kept time-geographic diaries, and the results from them were grounded for individual, semi-structured in-depth interviews. Individual reflections on everyday working life were recorded. Transcribed statements from the interviews were analysed to determine factors influencing job satisfaction.
  
  
  RESULTS
  The nine therapists kept diaries for one day a month for a total of 70 preselected days over a period of nine months; six participated in individual interviews. Four factors constraining OT job satisfaction were revealed. Economic concerns, new professional paradigms and methods in combination with a new organisational structure for the occupational therapy service caused uncertainty. In addition, decreasing possibilities for supervision by colleagues influenced job satisfaction. Opportunities for experiencing autonomy in everyday working life were described as facilitators for job satisfaction.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  The time-geographic and interview methods were useful in focusing on the job satisfaction of occupational therapists, who provided individual interpretations of the balance between autonomy and three types of constraints in everyday working life. The constraints related to organisation, power relations and - not least - how the organisational project of the department fitted in with OTs' individual projects. Matching of organisational and individual projects is of crucial importance, not only for OTs but for most workplaces where individuals are employed to serve patients in the healthcare sector.
authors: Occupational Therapy and Physiotherapy Department, General Medicine Department C, Copenhagen University Hospital, Gentofte, Denmark.
authors: Hans Jørgen
authors: HJ
authors: Bendixen
authors: Technology and Social Change Institute, Linköping University, Linköping, Sweden.
authors: Kajsa
authors: K
authors: Ellegård
mesh_terms: D003718:Denmark; D006739:Hospital Administration; D006801:Humans; D007588:Job Satisfaction; D009788:Occupational Therapy / Q000191:economics / Q000458:organization & administration / Q000523:psychology*; D017009:Professional Autonomy; D062211:Spatio-Temporal Analysis; D013997:Time Factors; D035501:Uncertainty; D017132:Workplace / Q000523:psychology
keywords: Autonomy; constraints; diary; everyday work life; time-geography