Continuous Work Support Checklist for Female Healthcare Workers: Scale Development and Validation

Area of Science:

• Healthcare Management
• Sociology of Work
• Gender Studies

Background:

• Gender-role responsibilities in Japan often lead women in popular healthcare jobs to quit.
• There is a need for targeted workplace support to improve retention of female healthcare professionals.

Purpose of the Study:

• To develop and validate a workplace support checklist for women in healthcare in Japan.
• To identify key factors contributing to continuous employment for female healthcare workers.

Main Methods:

• An exploratory factor analysis was conducted on data from 780 healthcare professionals (74.8% female) at a Japanese medical university.
• Participants rated 35 items for their relevance to continuous work support for women.
• A 16-item checklist across four domains was developed and validated using Cronbach's alpha.

Main Results:

• Four domains emerged: "Support for child rearing and home care," "Information dissemination," "Active promotion of women workers to higher positions," and "Consulting and counseling service."
• High reliability (Cronbach's alpha 0.88–0.92) was found for the extracted factors.
• Women intending to leave the workplace particularly valued "Support for child rearing and home care" and "Consulting and counseling service."

Conclusions:

• The developed checklist is a reliable and valid tool for assessing workplace support for female healthcare professionals in Japan.
• Addressing childcare, home care, and counseling services is crucial for retaining women in the healthcare workforce.
• Promoting women to higher positions and improving information dissemination are also important support factors.