Motivation and job satisfaction among medical and nursing staff in a Cyprus public general hospital

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>The objective of this study was to investigate how medical and nursing staff of the Nicosia General Hospital is affected by specific motivation factors, and the association between <it>job satisfaction </it>and <it>motivation</it>. Furthermore, to determine the motivational drive of socio-demographic and job related factors in terms of improving work performance.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>A previously developed and validated instrument addressing four work-related motivators (<it>job attributes, remuneration, co-workers and achievements</it>) was used. Two categories of health care professionals, medical doctors and dentists (N = 67) and nurses (N = 219) participated and motivation and job satisfaction was compared across socio-demographic and occupational variables.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>The survey revealed that <it>achievements </it>was ranked first among the four main motivators, followed by <it>remuneration</it>, <it>co-workers </it>and <it>job attributes</it>. The factor <it>remuneration </it>revealed statistically significant differences according to gender, and hospital sector, with female doctors and nurses and accident and emergency (A+E) outpatient doctors reporting greater mean scores (p < 0.005). The medical staff showed statistically significantly lower job satisfaction compared to the nursing staff. Surgical sector nurses and those >55 years of age reported higher job satisfaction when compared to the other groups.</p> <p>Conclusions</p> <p>The results are in agreement with the literature which focuses attention to management approaches employing both monetary and non-monetary incentives to motivate health care professionals. Health care professionals tend to be motivated more by intrinsic factors, implying that this should be a target for effective employee motivation. Strategies based on the survey's results to enhance employee motivation are suggested.</p

An initial psychometric evaluation and exploratory cross-sectional study of the Body Checking Questionnaire among Brazilian women

Body checking is considered an expression of an excessive preoccupation with appearance. The first aim of this study was to evaluate the psychometric properties of a Brazilian Portuguese version of the Body Checking Questionnaire (BCQ). Additionally, we wanted to examine the questionnaire’s associations with body avoidance behaviour, body mass index, dietary habits, and the intensity, frequency, and length of physical exercise. Finally, we also examined the differences between the total BCQ score and the individual BCQ factor scores. Differences between active and sedentary persons and between non-dieters and those on weight-loss diets were also analyzed. For the psychometric study, 546 female public university students from four different courses were surveyed. Two minor samples of university students and eating disorders women were also recruited. In the second part of the study, 403 women were recruited from weight-loss programs, gyms, and a university. All participants were verbally invited to participate in the research and voluntarily took part. Confirmatory factor analysis showed a good fit to the original model of the Brazilian BCQ that retained all 23 items. Satisfactory evidence of construct validity and internal consistency were also generated through analysis of factor loadings, t-values, Cronbach’s alpha, and construct reliability tests. The results also showed associations among body checking and body avoidance, body satisfaction, social anxiety, body mass index, and the frequency and intensity of physical exercise. Significant differences were found between non-dieters and weight-loss dieters for all BCQ factors and the total BCQ score. For physically active and sedentary persons, a significant difference was only observed for idiosyncratic checking behaviour. In conclusion, the BCQ appears to be a valid and reliable scale for Brazilian research, and the associations and differences found in this study suggest that women at gyms and especially in weight-loss programs should be targeted for future body checking studies

What Makes Entrepreneurs Happy? Determinants of Satisfaction Among Founders

This study empirically investigates factors influencing satisfaction levels of founders of new ventures, using a representative sample of 1,107 Dutch founders. We relate entrepreneurial satisfaction (with income, psychological burden and leisure time) to firm performance, motivation and human capital. Founders with high levels of specific human capital are more satisfied with income than those with high levels of general human capital. Intrinsic motivation and that of combining responsibilities lowers stress and leads to more satisfaction with leisure time. Women are more satisfied with their income than men, even though they have a lower average monthly turnover

A Longitudinal Test of the Demand–Control Model Using Specific Job Demands and Specific Job Control

# The Author(s) 2010. This article is published with open access at Springerlink.com Background Supportive studies of the demand–control (DC) model were more likely to measure specific demands combined with a corresponding aspect of control. Purpose A longitudinal test of Karasek’s (Adm Sci Q. 24:285–308, 1) job strain hypothesis including specific measures of job demands and job control, and both selfreport and objectively recorded well-being. Method Job strain hypothesis was tested among 267 health care employees from a two-wave Dutch panel survey with a 2-year time lag. Results Significant demand/control interactions were found for mental and emotional demands, but not for physical demands. The association between job demands and job satisfaction was positive in case of high job control, whereas this association was negative in case of low job control. In addition, the relation between job demands and J. de Jonge (*

Nurse forecasting in Europe (RN4CAST): Rationale, design and methodology

Contains fulltext : 97171.pdf (postprint version ) (Open Access)BACKGROUND: Current human resources planning models in nursing are unreliable and ineffective as they consider volumes, but ignore effects on quality in patient care. The project RN4CAST aims innovative forecasting methods by addressing not only volumes, but quality of nursing staff as well as quality of patient care. METHODS/DESIGN: A multi-country, multilevel cross-sectional design is used to obtain important unmeasured factors in forecasting models including how features of hospital work environments impact on nurse recruitment, retention and patient outcomes. In each of the 12 participating European countries, at least 30 general acute hospitals were sampled. Data are gathered via four data sources (nurse, patient and organizational surveys and via routinely collected hospital discharge data). All staff nurses of a random selection of medical and surgical units (at least 2 per hospital) were surveyed. The nurse survey has the purpose to measure the experiences of nurses on their job (e.g. job satisfaction, burnout) as well as to allow the creation of aggregated hospital level measures of staffing and working conditions. The patient survey is organized in a sub-sample of countries and hospitals using a one-day census approach to measure the patient experiences with medical and nursing care. In addition to conducting a patient survey, hospital discharge abstract datasets will be used to calculate additional patient outcomes like in-hospital mortality and failure-to-rescue. Via the organizational survey, information about the organizational profile (e.g. bed size, types of technology available, teaching status) is collected to control the analyses for institutional differences.This information will be linked via common identifiers and the relationships between different aspects of the nursing work environment and patient and nurse outcomes will be studied by using multilevel regression type analyses. These results will be used to simulate the impact of changing different aspects of the nursing work environment on quality of care and satisfaction of the nursing workforce. DISCUSSION: RN4CAST is one of the largest nurse workforce studies ever conducted in Europe, will add to accuracy of forecasting models and generate new approaches to more effective management of nursing resources in Europe

Sequence Composition and Gene Content of the Short Arm of Rye (Secale cereale) Chromosome 1

BACKGROUND: The purpose of the study is to elucidate the sequence composition of the short arm of rye chromosome 1 (Secale cereale) with special focus on its gene content, because this portion of the rye genome is an integrated part of several hundreds of bread wheat varieties worldwide. METHODOLOGY/PRINCIPAL FINDINGS: Multiple Displacement Amplification of 1RS DNA, obtained from flow sorted 1RS chromosomes, using 1RS ditelosomic wheat-rye addition line, and subsequent Roche 454FLX sequencing of this DNA yielded 195,313,589 bp sequence information. This quantity of sequence information resulted in 0.43× sequence coverage of the 1RS chromosome arm, permitting the identification of genes with estimated probability of 95%. A detailed analysis revealed that more than 5% of the 1RS sequence consisted of gene space, identifying at least 3,121 gene loci representing 1,882 different gene functions. Repetitive elements comprised about 72% of the 1RS sequence, Gypsy/Sabrina (13.3%) being the most abundant. More than four thousand simple sequence repeat (SSR) sites mostly located in gene related sequence reads were identified for possible marker development. The existence of chloroplast insertions in 1RS has been verified by identifying chimeric chloroplast-genomic sequence reads. Synteny analysis of 1RS to the full genomes of Oryza sativa and Brachypodium distachyon revealed that about half of the genes of 1RS correspond to the distal end of the short arm of rice chromosome 5 and the proximal region of the long arm of Brachypodium distachyon chromosome 2. Comparison of the gene content of 1RS to 1HS barley chromosome arm revealed high conservation of genes related to chromosome 5 of rice. CONCLUSIONS: The present study revealed the gene content and potential gene functions on this chromosome arm and demonstrated numerous sequence elements like SSRs and gene-related sequences, which can be utilised for future research as well as in breeding of wheat and rye

Frequent CEO Turnover and Firm Performance: The Resilience Effect of Workforce Diversity

© 2020, Springer Nature B.V. CEO turnover (or succession) is a critical event in an organization that influences organizational processes and performance. The objective of this study is to investigate whether workforce diversity (i.e., age, gender, and education-level diversity) might have a resilience effect on firm performance under the frequency of CEO turnover. Based on a sample of 409 Korean firms from 2010 to 2015, our results show that firms with more frequent CEO turnover have a lower firm performance. However, firms with more gender and education-level diversity could buffer the disruptive effect of frequent CEO turnover on firm performance to offer a benefit to the organization. Our theory and findings suggest that effectively managing diverse workforce can be a resilience factor in an uncertain organizational environment because diverse workforce has complementary skills and behaviors that can cope better with uncertainty and signals social inclusion of an organization, thus fostering a long-term exchange relationship. These findings contribute to the literature on CEO turnover (or succession) and diversity