A. Gigantesco, A. Picardi, E. Chiaia, A. Balbi, M.A. Ciavarella, M. Purpura, P. Morosini - Vol. 8, March 2002, Issue 1
Testo Bibliografia Summary Indice
Sviluppo, validazione e primo impiego
di uno strumento per la valutazione del livello di soddisfazione degli operatori
dei Dipartimenti di Salute Mentale
Development, validation, and preliminary use of a self-report questionnaire
to assess satisfaction of mental health professionals
Objective
Development, validation and first use of a self-completed questionnaire to assess satisfaction with work in mental health professionals.
Methods
The developed questionnaire consists of 21 items with response scales from 1 to 6. It has been developed through review of the limited literature and focus group. A reliability test-retest study was performed on 46 mental health professionals with different roles. Factorial validity and internal consistency of each derived subscale were evaluated on a wide sample of 332 professionals.
In addition, professionals’ satisfaction was evaluated and possible relationships were tested between total and subscale scores and the following variables: age, sex, service, professional role and years of job.
Results
Weighted kappa was higher than 0.60 for 71% of the items, between 0.50 and 0.60 for 29%. Factor analysis identified three factors or subscales (functioning of the service, professional role, and manager’s competence) accounting for 50,1% of the total variance. Cronbach’s alpha coefficient of the subscales ranges from 0.77 to 0.88.
Low levels of satisfaction in different aspects of job have been found among mental health staff. They are particularly dissatisfied with promotional opportunities, circulation of information, respect and availability of the colleagues. Differences have been found between hospital-and community-based staff and between psychiatrists, nurses and social workers. Those working in community settings were more satisfied; psychiatrists were more satisfied with professional role than nurses and social workers, and less satisfied with competence of managers than social workers and auxiliary staff.
Conclusion
The questionnaire is reliable and has a coherent factor structure, with three factors or subscales which have good internal consistency. This questionnaire may be useful to assess satisfaction with work in mental health staff. The preliminary results of its use suggest that satisfaction with different aspects of work is low and differs between community and hospital staff and between different professional roles.