Joy at Work of Professional Nurses, Srinagarind Hospital

Abstract

Joy in the workplace among nurses is a critical determinant of service quality and organizational commitment. This descriptive study aims to 1) assess the level of job happiness among professional nurses, 2) analyze the relationship between age groups, organizational climate, and emotional intelligence with job happiness, and 3) identify factors that can predict job happiness among professional nurses at Srinagarind Hospital. The sample comprised 124 professional nurses selected through stratified random sampling. The research instruments included four-part questionnaires: general information, job happiness, organizational climate, and emotional intelligence. The content validity was verified (Index of Item-Objective Congruence: IOC), with IOC values for parts 2–4 ranging from 0.6 to 1.00, and the reliability (Cronbach’s alpha) was .88, .94, and .93, respectively. Data analysis employed descriptive statistics, the Fisher-Freeman-Halton exact test, Pearson's correlation analysis, and stepwise multiple regression analysis.

Results: The study revealed that 1) professional nurses exhibit a high degree of job satisfaction; 2) age group does not correlate with job satisfaction, whereas organizational climate and emotional intelligence demonstrate a statistically significant positive correlation with job satisfaction at the .01 level; and 3) organizational climate and emotional intelligence collectively account for 50.8% of the variance in job satisfaction. These findings underscore the critical influence of these two factors on the job satisfaction of professional nurses. It is recommended to cultivate a supportive organizational climate and enhance the emotional competencies of personnel to improve job satisfaction and promote sustainable organizational commitment.