Unique expatriate factors associated with job dissatisfaction among nurses

Abstract

Aim To assess whether expatriate‐specific factors were associated with nurses’ overall job dissatisfaction after controlling for known factors. Background Current evidence about job dissatisfaction among nurses in Saudi Arabia is not specific to expatriate nurses. Specific aspects such as job insecurity, fear of litigation, and language barriers have not been assessed in the context of job dissatisfaction. Introduction The majority of nurses in the Arab Gulf countries are expatriate. The motive for employment here is purely financial because there is no path to permanent residency. Methods This was a cross‐sectional electronic survey of 977 expatriate nurses in Al‐Qassim, Saudi Arabia. The survey included questions on demography, job dissatisfaction (overall and related to salary, workload, and teamwork), job characteristics, job duration as an expatriate, communication issues with patients and doctors, fear of litigation, and job insecurity. We used a hierarchical logistic regression to evaluate whether unique factors were associated with overall job dissatisfaction either as a group, or individually. Results The mean age of the nurses was 32 years, and 19% reported overall job dissatisfaction. The unique expatriate factors as a group contributed significantly to the model. Job insecurity, patient communication problems, and shorter job duration were significantly associated with higher overall job dissatisfaction. Conclusions Job insecurity, job duration, and patient communication were significant correlates of overall job dissatisfaction among expatriate nurses. Implications for nursing policy A longer job contract and organizational initiatives to help new expatriate nurses acculturate will likely decrease feelings of job insecurity and increase job satisfaction.

Leadership Style, Work Engagement and Organizational Commitment Among Nurses in Saudi Arabian Hospitals

“… 14 Therefore, not only the barriers to the expatriates but also the job dissatisfaction and turnover are few other issues affecting the nursing sector in Saudi Arabia. 15 , 16 As a result, there is a need to realize and establish strong and effective leadership in the nursing sector in order to handle the challenges and issues and enabling organizational commitment and increasing retention rates, 17 for better managing challenges such as the Covid-19 pandemic. Various studies 15 , 18 , 19 have analyzed nursing retention and linked it with job dissatisfaction, intention to leave, cultural differences, etc., but there is considerably little research focusing on the impact of leadership styles on increasing organizational commitment and retention rates.…”

The Relationship Between Nurses' Quality of Work-Life on Organizational Loyalty and Job Performance in Saudi Arabian Hospitals: A Cross-Sectional Study

“…Job satisfaction, autonomy of work, and resource adequacy reflected more strong correlations with task, contextual, and adaptive performance; and all types of commitment. As identified in the previous studies (12,14,15,26,38), job satisfaction, one of the important 'quality of work-life' subscale was identified to be significantly influencing job performance and organization loyalty. Thus, it can be analyzed and concluded that quality of work-life can moderately influence the organization loyalty and job performance of the nurses in Saudi Arabia, based on the hypothesis analysis.…”

“…Third part of the questionnaire includes 18 items, measured on a 7-point Likert scale ((SD = 0) strongly disagree; (MD = 1) moderately disagree; (LD = 2) slightly disagree; (O = 3) neither disagree nor agree; (LA = 4) slightly agree; (MA = 5) moderately agree; (SA = 6) strongly agree) related to organizational commitment adapted from OCQ. These are further categorized into affective commitment (items 1-6), continuance commitment (items 7-12), and normative commitment (items [13][14][15][16][17][18].…”

“…The previous studies ( 18 , 19 ) have identified that work-related issues such as lack of managerial effort to improve the work environment of nurses, seeking perfectionism, support from the ward manager, salary, the relationship at work with other nurses, communication, relationship with team members, and the fairness of shift work between nurses can significantly affect the loyalty and job performance of nurses in Saudi Arabian hospitals. Communication between nurses and between nurses and patients plays an important role in improving the quality of work life, and communication issues were identified to be significantly correlated with the nurses' dissatisfaction ( 15 ). Lower satisfaction levels among the nurses may lead to decreased organization loyalty, while higher satisfaction levels may lead to increased job performance ( 16 ), whereas, improved job performance is positively correlated with organizational commitment ( 17 ).…”

“…For instance, it was identified that many expatriate nurses initially come to Saudi Arabia even though the working and living conditions are poor, only to gain enough work experience, so that they can later move to the developed countries such as the US and the UK, where they can experience better work-life conditions ( 13 ). Therefore, there are various factors that affect both Saudi and non-Saudi nurses in relation to the quality of work-life and their satisfaction levels ( 14 , 15 ).…”