Nurses’ perceptions on factors contributing to job dissatisfaction in a public psychiatric hospital in North West Province, South Africa

Abstract

Job dissatisfaction among nurses is a serious global concern. However, it seems that the numbers of studies on job dissatisfaction among nurses are limited. This study therefore seeks to explore and describe the nurses’ perceptions on the factors contributing to job dissatisfaction in order to make recommendations aimed at increasing nurses’ satisfaction level in a public psychiatric hospital in North West Province. Exploratory-descriptive qualitative design was followed. Purposive sampling techniques was utilised to select study participants. Sample size was determined by data saturation which was reached after ten unstructured individual interviews. Data were analysed following Tesch’s method of qualitative data analysis. The results indicated three major themes of the factors contributing to job dissatisfaction among nurses, that is, social, financial and organisational factors. From these results, it can be concluded that more nursing research is still needed on this topic.

Keywords: Nurses, perceptions, job satisfaction, job dissatisfaction.