The level of job satisfaction of staff nurses in a hospital is an important topic of global interest. There are various descriptive studies regarding this topic in public and private hospitals across the world, but there is very limited research on this subject from Kerala, India, a state with health care indices comparable to that of developed countries. The objectives of the study were to assess the level of Overall Job Satisfaction of the staff nurses working in the 300 bedded multispecialty tertiary care public hospital in Kerala and to analyse the factors affecting the job satisfaction and to investigate the relationship between the various socio-demographic variables and subscales of job satisfaction with the level of Overall Job Satisfaction. It was a cross sectional descriptive study. A sample of 50 Staff Nurses working in the 300 bedded multispecialty tertiary care public hospital in Kerala were selected using simple random sampling. The data was collected using a self administered structured Job Satisfaction Questionnaire. The Staff Nurses working in this hospital had an overall good level of satisfaction with their job, (mean 3.32, SD=0.25; possible score range 1-5). Among the subscales, Interpersonal Relationship (mean=4.42, SD=0.40) is rated as the highest satisfied domain. Nurses with higher qualification and using public transport are found to have lower levels of Overall Job Satisfaction (p=0.012). All the five subscales showed statistically significant prediction of Overall Job Satisfaction with p value <0.001. Our study showed a good level of job satisfaction among the staff nurses in a tertiary care public hospital in Kerala, India. The modifiable factors affecting Overall Job Satisfaction were good interpersonal relationships, good conveyance system to hospital and support from the employers. The influence of a good peer group relationship among nurses need to be highlighted which had a major contribution to Overall Job Satisfaction and it can even compensate the dissatisfaction level in other satisfaction components. Moreover to reduce the cost of recruiting and training new staff in the healthcare system, the management of hospitals are encouraged to develop strategic measures to enhance the level of staff nurses’ job satisfaction.

Keywords: Job satisfaction, Tertiary Care Hospital, Staff Nurses, Kerala.

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Dr Binu Abraham

Associate Professor, Dept of Paediatrics, Government Medical College, Parippally, Kerala-691574, India

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