Job satisfaction and attitudes towards nursing care among nurses working at Mzuzu Central Hospital in Mzuzu, Malawi

Abstract

IntroductionNurses work at the frontlines of most healthcare systems, and their contributions are recognised as essential in delivering effective patient care.1 Providing quality nursing care is therefore an important consideration when discussing patient care standards. Nurses who are satisfied with their work and with the conditions under which care is provided are more likely to provide quality care that satisfies the patient. Literature has shown that job dissatisfaction leads nurses to have negative attitudes towards their work, which negatively affects the quality of care they provide. Nurses' job satisfaction is defined as the degree to which nurses like or enjoy the work they do.3 Job satisfaction is important in healthcare organisations because it is an indicator of the physical and psychological states of employees. 4 The attitude that a nurse holds towards patients and their state of ill health strongly determines the quality and extent of the emotional, physical, and psychological help that patients receive from that nurse. 5 Attitude is an evaluative disposition; a tendency to like or dislike, or to act favourably or unfavourably towards someone or something, which might have an impact on the way someone behaves towards that person or object. 6,7 It is established that optimal and compassionate nursing care is negatively affected by critical shortages of staff, heavy workload, low salaries, lack of support and respect from managers, inter-staff conflict, and poor quality of equipment and materials, among other factors.8-12 Such challenges may predispose nurses to negative attitudes and unprofessional conduct. The public opinion of nurses and their abilityOriginal Research Job satisfaction and attitudes towards nursing care among nurses working at Mzuzu Central Hospital in Mzuzu, Malawi to provide safe, quality, and compassionate care has been affected by such unprofessional conduct, incidences of which have subsequently become the subjects of media headlines. 13 Newspapers from Malawi and elsewhere in subSaharan Africa have reported about nurses' negative attitudes, negligence, and malpractice.14-18 Furthermore, a content analysis of South African newspapers found that there were few articles that portrayed the image of nursing as a caring, compassionate, and knowledgeable profession, while many articles indicated that nurses were overworked, uncaring, lazy, and suffering from burnout, with a general portrayal of negative attitude.19 Studies conducted in Malawi have reported that negative attitudes among nurses are sometimes manifested by rudeness and scolding of patients. 8,20,21 Such behaviours are associated with job dissatisfaction among nurses. 22-24Patient and public complaints about the quality of nursing care in Malawi may be related to negative attitudes among nurses who are dissatisfied with their jobs. This study was conducted to investigate the relationship between nurses' job satisfaction and attitudes towards nursing care at Mzuzu Central Hospital in Malawi. Methods Study design and se...

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