Social capital among health workers in academic health centers of Isfahan city, Iran

Social capital refers to features of social organization that leads to quality improvement, teamworking, organizational commitment and labor productivity. Considering the importance and the role of social capital and limited studies in the field of health human resources social capital, this study aimed to determine the social capital of hospitals’ workforces.
A descriptive cross-sectional survey was employed to collect data from a sample of 555 teaching hospital staff of Isfahan city. Data was obtained by structured and valid self-administrated questionnaire and analyzed by descriptive and analytic statistics using SPSS (version 16).
The mean score of social capital in the studied centres was 3.09 . The highest and lowest mean score was 3.37 and 2.39, respectively. Among the aspects of social capital, the highest and lowest average belonged to the networks and mutual understanding.
According to the findings of this study and in order to maintain and improve social capital of workforces, measures like orienting the staff (especially the staff of the clinical sections) with the concepts of social capital, strengthening of common sense among employees by creating a friendly environment within the hospital, increasing the capacity of acceptance of individual differences, cultural enrichment, increasing job security and matching networks and organizational goals are recommended.