A comparative study of job satisfaction of the medical and nursing staff in two regional hospitals in Greece

OBJECTIVE To compare the job satisfaction of the medical and nursing staff in two regional hospitals in Greece, with a different capacity (Corfu General Hospital, Filiates General Hospital), and to derive general conclusions about job satisfaction of medical and nursing in public hospitals in Greece. METHOD A survey was conducted from January to June 2012 on doctors and nurses in the two study hospitals. The data were collected using the questionnaire Job Satisfaction Survey (JSS). The items in this questionnaire are divided into 9 categories, concerning supervision, rewards, procedures, promotion, benefits, wages, partners, nature of work and communication. Additional questions were added covering the demographic, geographical and socio-economic characteristics of the respondents. The data were entered and processed using the software Microsoft Excel, the statistical software StatPlus (AnalystSoft 2009) and the Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS) IBM, version 20. RESULTS Of the 135 questionnaires collected, 60% (n=81) originated from the General Hospital of Corfu and the remaining 40% (n=54) originated from the General Hospital of Filiates. The workforce of hospitals at the start of the study period consisted of 87 doctors and 314 nurses for 231 beds in the General Hospital of Corfu and 50 doctors and 77 nurses for 84 beds in the General Hospital of Filiates. The overall job satisfaction at both hospitals as assessed by JSS was low, with no apparent significant difference between doctors p=0.14 and nurses p=0.36. The General Hospital of Filiates presented a generally slightly better job satisfaction rates in almost all categories. The category with the lowest score in job satisfaction for both hospitals was that concerning salaries. In contrast, the category with the highest score and slightly greater job satisfaction concerned questions about work partners. CONCLUSIONS It appears that the medical and nursing staff in both hospitals encounter huge problems in their work environment due to a rigid central system, which does not inspire their confidence or promote job satisfaction. These findings should be taken into consideration in seeking for solutions.