NURSES PERCEPTION OF JOB SATISFACTION, JOB STRESS IN A CRITICAL CARE ENVIRONMENT 500 words

NURSES PERCEPTION OF JOB SATISFACTION, JOB STRESS IN A CRITICAL CARE ENVIRONMENT  

INTRODUCTION  

Nurses are crucial in the health sector and the entire global system. The purpose of the study stems from relative events affecting job satisfaction and job stress especially noticed among nurses in critical care environment. Increasing health care costs alongside shortage of nurses have presented the government and health administrators with a Herculean task of maintaining qualitative health delivery. The race to get quality personnel’s, nurses in the health sector is becoming difficult , this indirectly affects the level  of job satisfaction and job stress and the quality of health care delivery. (Bonn, 1997; Contino, 2002).

The concept of job satisfaction is of immense importance to nurses, satisfied nurses are therefore more willing to stay in the field of nursing and the organization that assures job satisfaction and a relative low job stress. (Urden, 1999)

Shortage of nurses and relative stress on the available nurses makes the issue of professionalism and quality service delivery a hoax in the health care system. These results in relative job stress and eventually pave way for anger; stress is a predictor of job dissatisfaction. (Thomas, 2004).

 

The classic job satisfaction research of Fredrick Hertzberg’s Motivation Versus Hygiene theory plays a crucial role in reminding the managers and administrators of the best way to approach nurses’ job satisfaction.

Job Satisfaction goes a long way to ensure nurses stay in an organization for a long period, from several nurses experience unsatisfactory conditions and inadequate staffing affects service delivery. (Thomas, 2004).  In 48 studies with a total of 15,048 nurses statistical data revealed that stress is the highest variable among 13 variables various researches had researched on responsible for job dissatisfaction. (Blegen, 1993; cited by Thomas 2004).

The aforementioned problems opens up or provides the basis for the research which h basically centers on job satisfaction and job stress in an age of shortage of nurses and mobility of nurses from one organization to another due to unsatisfactory job conditions.

 

                                         BACKGROUND  

 

Job satisfaction is a factor that paves way for the decision of a nurse to stay in a particular organization for a long period; it also reduces the risk of job stress and job dissatisfaction.

Identifying the major problems have continually received a more open minded research in the field of nursing yielding no significant resolutions or outcomes. Nurses have been dedicated to providing quality services, but the work of environment needs to be guarded by policies and incentives to ensure quality health delivery.

As opined by (Laschinger etal, 2001) an unconducive work milieu hinders attempts to improve patient satisfaction because higher degree of job satisfaction equals to higher quality of nursing care.

A study by reveals that there will be an estimated shortage of registered nurses with a BSN of 1,119,000 and likewise an estimated shortage of registered nurses with a MSN or Doctorate of 507,000 by 2010. (Upeniks, 2003)  What can be deduced from the foregoing is a relative shortage of skilled and professional nurses which connotes a decline in quality service delivery.