Assessment of job satisfaction among primary health care providers in Alexandria, Egypt

ABSTRACT

This study was carried out on a sample of 538 health care providers. One quarter of the studied health care providers were physicians, more than half of them were nursing staff, while paramedical personnel constituted 20.2%. Generally, job dissatisfaction was highly prevalent among the studied sample with a median job satisfaction score [JSS] of -42. Dissatisfaction was high for external dimension compared with the internal one. Moreover, overt dissatisfaction was highly prevalent regarding the 18 dimensions of job satisfaction, where the percentage of dissatisfaction ranged from 47.2% to 77.3% of the sample. Moreover, primary health care [PHC] providers were least satisfied with the available facilities, morality, financial advantages, work environment and work regulation systems. On the other hand, PHC workers were most satisfied with gratitude and esteem, autonomy, social advantages, self-expression, work style and work group. Exploring the relation between the demographic and job characteristics separately with job satisfaction revealed that the older health workers, males, physicians and senior workers had significantly a higher median JSS compared with their counterparts. Multiple logistic regression results and stepwise models revealed that being male was a predictor for being a satisfied physician; having bachelor certificates and the increasing age were predictors for being a satisfied nurse as well as increasing age, decreasing duration of work and having certificate less than bachelor degree were predictors for being a satisfied paramedical personnel. It was recommended that workload should be reduced through reforming the primary health care system and PHC workers should be provided by in-service vocational training, adequate salaries and incentives as well as adequate administrative support