Job satisfaction and the psychosocial work environment: Does the relationship vary by hospital patient care workers’ age?

Abstract

Increasing job satisfaction of healthcare workers is important for workers themselves, their employers, and their patients. This study draws on a sample of 1,409 patient care workers across two hospitals in the United States to explore the moderating effect of age in associations between job satisfaction and individual-workplace psychosocial exposures. Psychosocial work factors analyzed include job flexibility, job demands, decision latitude, break practices, and meal breaks. Contrary to mainstream management discourse, our findings suggest that most situational determinants of job satisfaction may not vary significantly by age. Findings can be used to inform occupational social work practice and future directions for managing employee behavioral health.

Keywords:

• Age
• employee assistance
• healthcare
• job characteristics
• job satisfaction

Acknowledgments

The authors thank Partners HealthCare Occupational Health Services; Lisa DiMarino and Rachel Corbin at Partners HealthCare Human Resources; individuals at each of the hospitals, including Jeanette Ives Erickson, Jackie Somerville, Dawn Tenney and Deborah Mulloy in Patient Care Services leadership; and Jeff Davis and Julie Celano in Human Resources. They also thank Terry Orechia, Eddie Tan, and Shari Weingarten for assistance with supporting databases, and Christopher Kenwood from the New England Research Institutes and Na Wang from Boston University School of Public Health for data preparation. This study would not have been accomplished without the participation of Partners HealthCare System and leadership from Joseph Cabral and Kurt Westerman.

Additional information

Funding

Funding for this project was provided by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention: 7K01 OH010673-02 (PI: Sabbath) and 5U19 OH008861-07 (PI: Sorensen). The funders had no role in the design or analysis of data.