School Dietitian’s Job Satisfaction and Job Importance According to the School Types in Sejong City

ABSTRACT

This study compared the job satisfaction and job importance of school dietitians according to various school types in Sejong. One hundred and twenty-six school dietitians working in kindergartens (n=36), elementary schools (n=42), middle schools (n=22), and high schools (n=26) participated in this questionnaire survey. The subjects were divided into four groups according to the school types. Half of the subjects were over 41 years of age, with 64.3% graduating from graduate school. The percentage of nutrition teachers was the highest in middle schools at 95.4%, followed by the elementary school at 90.5% and high school at 73.1%, whereas 100% of the kindergarten dietitians were not nutrition teachers (P＜0.001). The percentage of the running status of nutrition education classes/activities was lowest in kindergartens (P＜0.001). The job satisfaction score in the job itself area was significantly lower in kindergartens and high schools than in middle schools (P＜0.01). The satisfaction scores of human relationships, working environment, personnel evaluation, and welfare did not differ significantly among the schools. As for the Job importance, the scores of nutrition counseling were significantly lower in middle school than in elementary and high schools (P＜0.05). In cooking and distribution management, high schools were less important than other school levels (P＜0.05). These findings highlight the need for the placement of nutrition teachers in kindergarten to promote nutrition education, the reduction of workload for school dietitiansutrition teachers and additional placement of dietitians by the appropriate workload such as the number of people and meals to serve.