A descriptive cross sectional study of job satisfaction among pharmacists in a clinical setting

Background: Job satisfaction has been linked to improved job performance. Pharmacists as key healthcare providers with the ultimate duty of improving and maintaining the quality of life through the responsible provision of drug therapy, are expected to be highly productive. Low performance by Pharmacists can result to loss of lives especially through undetected actual and potential drug therapy problems which have been documented to be associated with high mortality and high rate of hospital admissions. Job satisfaction is the feeling of fulfilment that employees derive from their job which has a significant deal on their productivity. Assessing Pharmacists’ job satisfaction is therefore very paramount.
Objective: This study accessed job satisfaction among Pharmacists working in a tertiary hospital and identified factors affecting job satisfaction among the study population
Method: The study was a descriptive cross sectional study that employed the use of questionnaires as a research instrument for data collection with 30 participants completing the questionnaires. Simple percentages were used to analyse demographic characteristics and level of satisfaction. Relationship between variables was tested using chi square. Level of significance was measured at 95% confidence interval (p=0.05)
Result: There was male participants’ preponderance (76.7%). Majority of the participants had practice years between 11-20 years (56.7%). 63.3% had Masters Degrees, 93.3% were Christians and 80% married. Level of job satisfaction was 33.3% among the participants. Hospital culture (76.7%), work environment (60%), reward system (60%) and remuneration (53.3%) were found to be factors recorded with the highest level of dissatisfaction. The Pharmacists were some-what satisfied with how their contribution were valued and the value placed on them by the organisation (53.3% each). However, satisfaction with their position was moderate (40.0%).
Conclusion: Hospital pharmacists are important healthcare professionals that play critical roles in determining the effectiveness, efficiency, and sustainability of health care systems vial the delivery of pharmaceutical services. Showing concerns for Pharmacists welfare is an important factor to enhancing their job satisfaction with resultant improvement in the quality healthcare delivery. It is paramount that Government of Nigeria upgrades the remuneration of Pharmacists and provides conducive work environment as these would enhance productivity and effective pharmaceutical delivery to our teeming patient population.