title: A comparative study of job satisfaction among regular and staff on contract in the primary health care system in Delhi, India.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  Job satisfaction is a pleasant emotional state associated with the appreciation of one's work and contributes immensely to performance in an organization. The purpose of this study was to assess the comparative job satisfaction among regular and staff on contract in Government Primary Urban Health Centers in Delhi, India.
  
  
  METHODS
  The study was conducted in 2013, on a sample of 333 health care providers who were selected using a multistage random sampling technique. The sample included medical officers (MOs), auxiliary nurses and midwives (ANMs), pharmacists and laboratory technicians (LTs)/laboratory assistants (LAs) among regular and staff on contract. Analysis was done using SPSS version 18, and appropriate statistical tests were applied.
  
  
  RESULTS
  The job satisfaction for all the regular staff that is, MOs, ANMs, pharmacists, LAs, and LTs were relatively higher (3.3 ± 0.44) than the contract staff (2.7 ± 0.45) with 't'value 10.54 (P < 0.01). The mean score for regular and contract MOs was 3.2 ± 0.46 and 2.7 ± 0.56, respectively, and the same trends were found between regular and ANMs on the contract which was 3.4 ± 0.30 and 2.7 ± 0.38, regular and pharmacists on the contract was 3.3 ± 0.50 and 2.8 ± 0.41, respectively. The differences between groups were significant with a P < 0.01.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  Overall job satisfaction level was relatively low in both regular and contract staff. The factors contributing to satisfaction level were privileges, interpersonal relations, working-environment, patient relationship, the organization's facilities, career development, and the scarcity of human resources (HRs). Therefore, specific recommendations are suggested to policy makers to take cognizance of the scarcity of HRs and the on-going experimentation with different models under primary health care system.
authors.affiliation: Department of Community Health Administration, National Institute of Health and Family Welfare, Baba Gang Nath Marg, Munirka, India.
authors.forename: Pawan
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Kumar
authors.affiliation: Department of Social Sciences, National Institute of Health and Family Welfare, Baba Gang Nath Marg, Munirka, India.
authors.forename: Abdul M
authors.initials: AM
authors.lastname: Khan
authors.affiliation: Department of Pharmacology, FOD, Jamia Millia Islamia, New Delhi, India.
authors.forename: Deep
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Inder
authors.affiliation: Law Centre-1, Faculty of Law, University of Delhi, New Delhi, India.
authors.forename: Anu
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Mehra
keywords: Career development; contract staff; human resource policy