Job Satisfaction of Public Hospital Nurse in Hong Kong

Job Satisfaction can be defined as the employees’ feelings and a collection of attitudes that towards their job. The employee tendency to be satisfied or less satisfied was influence by various factors: the nature of the work, supervision, present pay, promotion opportunities and relations with co-workers; and these variables are very important. The Job Descriptive Index (JDI) and the Minnesota Satisfaction Questionnaire (MSQ) are widely used for measure job satisfaction. The theory of Discrepancy, Equity (Fairness), Disposition and Emotion can be determined the employee’ job satisfaction.

Now, Hong Kong hospitals are facing the problems of nursing shortage and high turnover of nurse. Peoples are great concerned about the impact for the quality of healthcare system that threatened the safety of patient. Refer to the report of nursing manpower resources of Hospital Authority survey 2011, the job satisfaction of nurses was scored to 3 on a scale of 10. The score reflected that most of the nurse was less satisfied on their job. According to the typical factors of JDI, we can investigate more about the job satisfaction of nurse by using the theory of Discrepancy, Equity (Fairness) and Emotion.
Discrepancy theory: Most of the nurses feel that their salary and workload are not proportional. The survey showed that most of the nurses were suffered a heavy workload, the current patient-to-nurse ratio during the morning shift reached 12-14:1, on the afternoon shift 14-16:1 and overnight shift 22-24:1, the nurse’ rotation of overnight shifts has increased from once a week to once every five days, and also the utilization rate of hospital beds has been maintained at between 100 to 110 percent. Refer to the theory, there a discrepancy between the job outcomes wanted and the outcomes that nurse perceived to be obtained.