Job Satisfaction and Psychiatric Morbidity among Resident Doctors in Selected Teaching Hospitals in Southern Nigeria: A web-based Survey

Job satisfaction is a means of contributing to overall life satisfaction and employees’ mental health. This study aimed to assess the level of job satisfaction and to determine the association between job satisfaction and psychiatric morbidity.

This descriptive study was a web-based survey conducted among 187 resident doctors in four selected teaching hospitals in Southern Nigeria. Data were collected within the time period of August-October, 2018. Job satisfaction was assessed using a single-item satisfaction measure scored on a 5-point Likert scale. In addition, psychological morbidity was assessed using the General Health Questionnaire (GHQ)-12 as the instrument. The Pearson’s correlation coefficient and the chi-squared statistic were used to assess the association between job satisfaction and psychological morbidity.

The respondents mean age was 36.5 ± 5.4. The majority of them (60.9%) were married, 58.1% were male, and 69.8% were senior registrars. The mean years of work experience was 9.8 ± 4.2. Only 50 (26.7%) respondents expressed overall job satisfaction. The mean score of the GHQ-12 instrument was 14.4 ± 7.4 using the Likert scoring scale and 4.0 ± 3.5 using the GHQ scoring method. About three-quarters (76.7%) and 57.2% of the participants were probable psychiatric cases when the Likert and GHQ cut-offs were applied, respectively. There was a moderate and significant correlation between job satisfaction scores and scores of the GHQ-12 instrument (r = - 0.5, p = 0.01).

The respondents demonstrated a low level of job satisfaction and a corresponding high level of psychiatric morbidity.