Assessment of job satisfaction among pharmacy professionals

Job satisfaction of pharmacy professionals is appreciably related to quality of pharmaceutical care. Poor Job satisfaction is associated with low productivity, absenteeism, high turnover and reduced working hours. Little is known about job satisfaction and its related factors among pharmacy professionals in Tikur Anbessa Specialized Hospital. Therefore, the current study is aimed to assess the level of job satisfaction among pharmacy professionals working in Tikur Anbessa Specialized Hospital, Addis Ababa, Ethiopia.

Institutional based cross sectional study was conducted among 80 pharmacy professionals working in Tikur Anbessa specialized hospital in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia from January to April 2019. The census sampling technique was used and data were collected using semi-structured self-administered questionnaire. Statistical analysis was carried out using the Statistical Package for the Social Sciences version 21.0.

Among 85 participants, 80 responded to the questionnaires completely that makes the response rate of 94%. A majority of the respondents were female (63.8%), with age group 30-39 years (57.5%), own bachelor degree (89.0%), had 1-5 years of work experience (65.0%) and provide outpatient pharmacy service (22.5%). Near to half (47.0%) of the respondents were not satisfied with their job. Only one among five of the participants feel that they are doing professional job which they enjoy and want to stay on their current working place. The least satisfaction score was obtained for staff adequacy (15.0%) and the highest satisfaction score was obtained for job relation of pharmacists with other health care professionals (74.0%).

In the current study near to half of the hospital pharmacists were poorly satisfied on their job. High workload, inadequate salary, low respect and treat from hospital management teams, uncomfortable working environment and insufficient promotion opportunities within the hospital were mentioned as the major reasons for their poor job satisfaction. Thus, policy makers, pharmacy directors and hospital administrators, should work to reduce workload, to increase incentives and to create good working environment to improve job satisfaction and the quality of pharmaceutical care in the hospital.