Academic job satisfaction questionnaire: Construction and validation in Saudi Arabia

Job satisfaction among family medicine physicians in Saudi Arabia

OBJECTIVE

Physicians are subject to chronic stressors, depression, and burnout due to long working hours, high requirements, and critical decision-making.[12345] All those reasons contribute to the dissatisfaction of physicians. The dissatisfaction of physicians might lead to lower health-care quality.[6] Moreover, patient satisfaction is strongly affected by physician satisfaction.[78] This study aims to measure job satisfaction among family medicine (FM) physicians in Saudi Arabia.

STUDY DESIGN

In this cross-sectional study, we recruited 265 FM physicians working in Saudi Arabia to participate in an online survey between October 2019 and January 2019.

RESULTS

Results showed that more than 50% of the respondents were very satisfied with their career choice (55.5%, n = 147). Non-Saudis who were satisfied or strongly satisfied were higher than those of Saudis (P = 0.035) and 2.45 times more likely to be dissatisfied compared to non-Saudi respondents. Respondents from the southern region were 81% less likely to be dissatisfied than respondents from the central region (OR = 0.19, P < 0.05).

CONCLUSION

Family medicine physicians showed a high level of satisfaction with their career choice regardless of gender, age, sector public or private, marital status. This is promising for family medicine as a medical specialty. The future of health care in Saudi Arabia is driven toward general practice and primary care centers, which aligns with the future vision of Saudi Arabia 2030.

Academic Staff Satisfaction with their Work: A Cross-Sectional Study in a Medical University

BACKGROUND:

Employees’ work satisfaction, combined with democratic management, are important predictors of future productivity in any organisation.

AIM:

The aim of this study is to investigate job satisfaction in academic staff as well as the associated working environment factors, using an original self-administered questionnaire.

METHODS:

A cross-sectional survey was conducted using an original standardised questionnaire. It involved 370 academic staff members at one of the five medical universities in Bulgaria. The questionnaire consists of 17 items (including occupational hazards, management style, conflict solving and demographic characteristics) rated on a 5-point Likert scale.

RESULTS:

The results revealed that the majority of academic staff (71.7%) works in a risky environment. Employees indicate that “mental strain”, “work with chemical agents and dust” and “work with biological hazards” are the most common risk factors. Democratic leadership and cooperation are most commonly applied management styles.

CONCLUSION:

The instrument for the measurement of job satisfaction revealed high values of psychometric characteristics for reliability and validity. The study found a high level of satisfaction of academics with their working conditions. It is necessary to conduct similar studies periodically to detect more precisely the decrease in academic staff work satisfaction and take timely and adequate measures to improve it.

Effect of Leadership Support, Work Conditions and Job Security on Job Satisfaction in a Medical College

Background:

Faculty members are crucial elements of an educational institution, and their job satisfaction is likely essential for success of the educational process. Leadership support, work conditions and perceived job security could be factors affecting academic job satisfaction.

Objective:

The aim of the study was to investigate the effect of leadership support, work conditions and perceived job security on the overall academic job satisfaction of faculty.

Materials and Methods:

A cross-sectional survey, using a structured questionnaire, was conducted to determine the effect of leadership support, work conditions and perceived job security on academic job satisfaction among faculty and teaching staff at the College of Medicine, Imam Abdulrahman Bin Faisal University, Dammam, Saudi Arabia. Multiple regression analysis was performed to examine the significance of these relationships at 95% confidence interval and P < 0.05 level of significance.

Results:

Leadership support (β = 0.187, t = 2.714, P = 0.007), work conditions (β = 0.199, t = 2.628, P= 0.009) and perceived job security (β = 0.264, t = 3.369, P = 0.001) were found to be significantly associated with overall academic job satisfaction.

Conclusion:

The results of this study support the hypothesis that faculty and teaching staff working with supportive leaders and favorable work conditions as well as having an optimized sense of perceived job security demonstrate significantly higher levels of overall academic job satisfaction. These findings provide input for policymakers, and their implementation could enhance an institution's vitality and performance, and thus enable it to fulfill its goals.

Physicians' Job Satisfaction and its Correlates in a Tertiary Medical Care Center, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia

Objectives:

To measure the degree of job satisfaction among physicians working in a Tertiary Care Hospital and to identify background and work environment characteristics that affect overall and differential job satisfaction.

Subjects and Methods:

This is a cross-sectional study of 340 physicians selected from a Tertiary Care Center using a stratified random sample with proportional allocation using a self-administered questionnaire with the 5-point Likert scale. From the 340 physicians requested to participate in the study, 217 (63.8%) completed the questionnaire. Descriptive statistics were used appropriately, including mean ± standard deviation for the quantitative variables, while frequency and percentages were used for the qualitative variables. ANOVA, t-test, and Chi-square were used as necessary to determine if there are any significant relationships between satisfaction scores and the predictor variables.

Subjects and Methods:

This is a cross-sectional study of 340 physicians selected from a Tertiary Care Center using a stratified random sample with proportional allocation using a self-administered questionnaire with the 5-point Likert scale. From the 340 physicians requested to participate in the study, 217 (63.8%) completed the questionnaire. Descriptive statistics were used appropriately, including mean ± standard deviation for the quantitative variables, while frequency and percentages were used for the qualitative variables. ANOVA, t-test, and Chi-square were used as necessary to determine if there are any significant relationships between satisfaction scores and the predictor variables.

Results:

A total of 217 physicians (males 75.6% females 24.4%) completed the questionnaire. Of this total, 52.5% were non-Saudis. The overall perceived satisfaction as measured by one question was 3.42 points out of 5 (68.4%) significantly lower than the overall satisfaction which took in consideration all variables 3.67 points (73.4%). Mean satisfaction scores were significantly negatively related to the number of children (P < 0.001) the physicians had, but positively correlated to stipend, duration of vacation leave, sick leave policy, health coverage for the employee and family, overall benefits package, involvement in academic work, and involvement in research work (P < 0.001).

Conclusion:

The working environment and policies of an organization play important roles in the satisfaction of its physicians. Boosting physician satisfaction is important for both the success of a Tertiary Care Center and for the high quality services offered to patients.

Job satisfaction and its influential factors in dental academic members in tehran, iran

Background:

Assessment of job satisfaction of the faculty members and its underlying factors may increase career fulfillment and raise the educational and research productivity, leading to higher quality of dental services at the community level, ultimately improving public oral health status.

Aim:

This study assessed job satisfaction and its influential factors in dental academic members in Tehran.

Subjects and Methods:

The job satisfaction level of 203 faculty members was assessed using a Likert scale questionnaire from 0 to 4, with 4 representing very satisfied and 0 not at all satisfied. The analysis of variance was used to compare the responses among dental faculty members of three different universities. The impact of age, gender, academic rank, employment status and the date of employment on the overall faculty job satisfaction was identified by multiple linear regression analysis.

Results:

The mean professional satisfaction score among faculty members was 1.5 (0.5) out of four. Among the studied underlying factors, only the date of employment was seen to have a statistically significant impact on the faculties’ overall job satisfaction (P= 0.05). There was no difference in job compensation observed between the three dental faculties. Dissatisfying aspects of the academic work included educational and research policies, monetary strategies, quality of leadership and administration, promotion and tenure policies, job security, educational environment, equipments, and facilities. The only satisfying factor was the interaction between faculty colleagues and students.

Conclusion:

Faculty members of Tehran Dental Schools are dissatisfied with their work environments in Tehran Dental Schools. Issues such as salary and remuneration, facilities, equipments, promotion and tenure policies are strongly believed to account for the dissatisfaction.

Development of an assessment tool to measure students' perceptions of respiratory care education programs: Item generation, item reduction, and preliminary validation

OBJECTIVES

Students who perceived their learning environment positively are more likely to develop effective learning strategies, and adopt a deep learning approach. Currently, there is no validated instrument for measuring the educational environment of educational programs on respiratory care (RC). The aim of this study was to develop an instrument to measure students' perception of the RC educational environment.

MATERIALS AND METHODS

Based on the literature review and an assessment of content validity by multiple focus groups of RC educationalists, potential items of the instrument relevant to RC educational environment construct were generated by the research group. The initial 71 item questionnaire was then field-tested on all students from the 3 RC programs in Saudi Arabia and was subjected to multi-trait scaling analysis. Cronbach's alpha was used to assess internal consistency reliabilities.

RESULTS

Two hundred and twelve students (100%) completed the survey. The initial instrument of 71 items was reduced to 65 across 5 scales. Convergent and discriminant validity assessment demonstrated that the majority of items correlated more highly with their intended scale than a competing one. Cronbach's alpha exceeded the standard criterion of >0.70 in all scales except one. There was no floor or ceiling effect for scale or overall score.

CONCLUSIONS

This instrument is the first assessment tool developed to measure the RC educational environment. There was evidence of its good feasibility, validity, and reliability. This first validation of the instrument supports its use by RC students to evaluate educational environment.