Job satisfaction and associated factors among health professionals working at Western Amhara Region, Ethiopia

BACKGROUND: In Ethiopia assuring the satisfaction of health care provider with their job is a major challenging problem. Job satisfaction is a worker’s emotional response to different job related factors resulting in finding pleasure, comfort, confidence, rewards, personal growth and various positive opportunities, including upward mobility, recognition, and appraisal done on a merit pattern with monetary value as compensation. Professionals, whose needs and expectations are satisfied, tend to be more productive compared to their colleagues. Thus, study is aimed at assessing job satisfaction and associated factors among health professionals working at Western Amhara region, Ethiopia. METHODS: An institution-based cross sectional study was conducted on March 2016 at Western Amhara region among 575 health professionals selected using simple random sampling. Logistic regression analysis was used to identify factors related to job satisfaction. Variables which have p-value less than or equal to 0.05 with corresponding AOR at 95 confidence interval was considered to declare the significance association. RESULTS: This study revealed that job satisfaction of health professional working at Western Amhara region was 31.7%. The mean age of respondent was 27.13 years. Majority of them, 79.3% and 95.3% were less than 30 years in age and orthodox Christian religion followers respectively. The presence of health professionals’ reference manual/guide, alcohol drinking, workload, experience, educational status and profession types were identified as significant factors associated with health care professionals’ job satisfaction level. Professional being laboratory technicians, pharmacists and Environmental health workers were 4.86 times more likely to satisfy themselves than nurses, midwives and Public health officers. Similarly, in their educational status, degree and above holders were 5.64 times more likely to satisfy themselves than below degree holders. Health professionals whose experience with > 3 years were 2.83 times more likely to satisfy themselves than counterpart. Health professionals who had high workloads were 3.99 times more likely to satisfy than those professionals whose workload was low. Professionals who did not drink alcohol were 3.55 times more likely to satisfy themselves than professionals who drank. Professionals who consult health reference manual/guide were 15.96 more likely to satisfy themselves than those professional who did not. CONCLUSION: Only one third of health professionals working at Eastern Amhara Region were satisfied on their job. The presence of health professionals’ reference manual/guide, alcohol drinking, workload, experience, educational status and profession types were identified as important predictors for job satisfaction.