http://www.sciedupress.com/jha Journal of Hospital Administration 2016, Vol. 5, No. 2 ORIGINAL ARTICLE Determination of factors that influence job satisfaction among health workers in Southern Nigeria ITIMI KALAMAWEI *1 , SUNNY ABEKI 2 , PAUL O DIENYE 3 1 Family Medicine Department, Federal Medical Centre, Yenagoa, Bayelsa State, Nigeria 2 University of Calabar, Calabar, Cross River State, Nigeria 3 University of Port Harcourt Teaching Hospital, Port Harcourt, Rivers State, Nigeria Received: May 25, 2015 Accepted: November 3, 2015 Online Published: December 14, 2015 DOI: 10.5430/jha.v5n2p6 URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.5430/jha.v5n2p6 ABSTRACT Objective: The major objective of this study is to determine the level and factors that affect job satisfaction among physicians and nurses in Federal Medical Centre (FMC) Yenagoa with respect to salary, benefit, duties, promotion, and pay. Methods: A descriptive cross sectional study was conducted involving 58 physicians and 182 nurses. A self-administered structured questionnaire was designed using a 5-point Lickert response format ranging from very satisfied, satisfied, neutral, dissatisfied and very dissatisfied to determine various levels and factors of job satisfaction that relate to 5 domains: salary, benefits, duties, promotion, pay and benefits. A mark of 1 was awarded for very dissatisfied, 2 for dissatisfied, 3 for neutral, 4 for satisfied and 5 for very satisfied. All scores were added to give aggregate score for each domain and overall, and t-test used to test for statistical significance in satisfaction levels between physicians and nurses. A p-value of < .05 was considered statistically significant. Results: A large number of respondents 54.2%, 51.7%, 50.0% and 41.7% were satisfied with job security, hours of work, delegation of work by supervisors and degree of autonomy respectively, 22.1% were dissatisfied and 16.7% very dissatisfied with the rate of promotion. Majority of respondents were satisfied with their profession: 51.7% satisfied and 22.9% very satisfied. Pay and benefits contributed to the highest level of dissatisfaction with 23.9% and 17.1% of respondents being dissatisfied and very dissatisfied respectively with present salaries. Differences in job satisfaction between physicians and nurses relating to the 5 domains showed physicians to be more satisfied with the benefits and nurses more satisfied with pay and benefits, other domains showed no statistical difference in satisfaction levels between physicians and nurses. Overall, 14.9% were very satisfied and 42.6% satisfied. Most respondents were satisfied with their jobs but a few were dissatisfied with their remuneration. Conclusions: There is a need to address the issue of enhancement of remuneration for nurses and particularly so for physicians, as they are the primary focus for patients coming to the hospital. Key Words: Job satisfaction, Health workers’ salary, Determinantion 1. I NTRODUCTION For almost one hundred years, employee job evaluation has been targeted by research. The origin of these studies dates back to at least 1911, when Taylor began to study employees and their duties to develop better ways to train workers. [1] Job satisfaction studies continue to emerge and the results are often valued for both humanistic and financial benefits. When employees are satisfied, they tend to care more about * Correspondence: ITIMI KALAMAWEI; Email: Kalamawei@yahoo.com; Address: Family Medicine Department, Federal Medical Centre, PMB 502, Yenagoa, Bayelsa State, Nigeria. 6 ISSN 1927-6990 E-ISSN 1927-7008