Job Satisfaction of Emergency Ambulance Personnel

Overview

The emergency department crowding is a worldwide health problem. Overcapacity admissions result in a decrease in health care quality. High job satisfaction, proper working environment, appropriate institutional structuring in government, and sufficient resources of the staff mean the quality of health care. To evaluate the job satisfaction of the personnel works in emergency health care in North Cyprus and contribute to raising the quality of health services to world standards. In this study, job satisfaction of the personnel working in emergency health services in North Cyprus evaluated through a questionnaire made between October 20; November 10, 2016. It consisted of two parts in which sociodemographic characteristics and job satisfaction scale. The job satisfaction scale developed by Güneri (2011) was a 5-point Likert type. It consisted of 7 sub-dimensions: the nature of work, relations with co-workers, vocational training, relationships with supervisors, economic, cultural, social aspect, and capacity of consumables. The scale can have the lowest score of 47 and the highest score of 235. Participants' high scores on the scale indicated high job satisfaction. The participants', 31.82% were in the 36-49 age, 81.06% were women, 75% were married, 82.5% had children, and 42.42% was an undergraduate degree. The majority of the participants were nurses who had been working for more than ten years and 40-50 hours per week. No significant difference found between job satisfaction and sociodemographic characteristics (p\>0.05). High school graduates, head nurses, emergency call center staff, working 1-4 years, 40-50 hours per week, and those who received updating training have significantly higher job-satisfaction scores than the other groups (p\<0.05). The high job satisfaction of the personnel working in emergency health services is the meaning of high-quality health care. We recommend the inclusion of emergency health services in the existing structure of the Ministry of Health in Northern Cyprus. Also, emergency health care should be provided by paramedics and EMTs (Emergency Medical Technician), decreasing weekly working hours and increasing updating training.

Perception and evaluation of the environment, communication, comfort, and adaptation to conditions affect individual success in the workplace. Wages and working hours, type of contract (shift work, overtime), security, administration, and relations with co-workers are examples of these conditions. For having high job satisfaction, it is also essential that the staff has sufficient knowledge about the job and their expectations. Job satisfaction can be positively affected by determining job, working time, and eliminating differences of work conditions to emergency health care personnel, especially paramedics. Emergency health services are not a separate unit in the ministry of health in Northern Cyprus. Since the emergency health services are not directly different from the existing system, and therefore, the staff directly connect to their units, some of the participants work in health centers. The first recruitment as a paramedic in Northern Cyprus in the Ministry of Health took place in 2005. However, Paramedics and EMTs who participated in our study declared that they work under the name of nurse staff. Paramedics, who previously worked under the name of another status, first started to work in the public sector in their occupation group as of 2018. Therefore, the current statistical information of both the ministry of health and the most crowded public hospital in Northern Cyprus does not provide sufficient up-to-date information on the number of paramedics and EMTs. This descriptive study was conducted to evaluate job satisfaction of nurses, paramedics, and EMTs working in Northern Cyprus emergency health care. A total of 17 healthcare facilities providing emergency care services were in the study. Of these facilities, 2 are emergency call centers, 4 are hospital emergency services, and the rest of connected to health centers. A total of one head nurse, 123 nurses, 12 paramedics, and 3 EMTs provide emergency health care to all of Northern Cyprus. The data of the study collected between October 20; November 10, 2016, after obtaining permission from the related institutions. The questionnaire consisted of two parts with sociodemographic characteristics and job satisfaction scale. The job satisfaction scale developed by Güneri, İlhan\& Avcı was a 5-point Likert type. It consisted of 7 sub-dimensions: the nature of work, relations with co-workers, vocational training, relationships with supervisors, economic, cultural, social aspect, and capacity of consumables. The answers to suggestions in the scale were scored as "very satisfied = 5 points", "satisfied = 4 points", "okay= 3 points", "dissatisfied = 2 points", and "very dissatisfied = 1 point". The scale lowest score was 47, and the highest was 235. Participants' high scores on the scale indicated high job satisfaction. In this study, the Cronbach alpha coefficient was found to be 0.94 in the scale and 0.79-0.95 in the sub-dimensions. For statistical analysis, we used to statistical program SPSS 21.0. (SPSS Inc, Chicago, IL, USA). Before the data analysis, the data set checked to eliminate the errors that may arise from data entry. Frequency analysis was used to determine the sociodemographic characteristics of the participants. Scores obtained from job satisfaction scale and sub-dimensions gave as descriptive statistics for central tendency measures such as mean, standard deviation, minimum, and maximum value. The scores of the participants obtained from the job satisfaction scale according to their independent variables were analyzed. For the data analyzing, the Kolmogorov-Smirnov test and the QQ plot graph used. It concluded that the data set conforms to normal distribution. After that, we compared the scale scores according to independent variables. In the comparison of job satisfaction scores according to the characteristics of the participants such as gender and marital status, a t-test was used since the independent variable consists of two categories. ANOVA test was used to compare the scores obtained by the participants if the independent variable such as age group and professional seniority consisted of more than two categories. If there was a difference between the types of the independent variable as a result of ANOVA, Tukey test was used to determine which groups the dispute originated. In this study, 132 of 138 personnel working in emergency health services reached in Northern Cyprus. Of the remaining, four were on long-term leave, and two did not accept.