The newly hired hospital staff nurse's professionalism, satisfaction and alienation

In a previously reported panel study [Speedling et al. (1981). Int. J. Nurs. Stud. 18, 217-225], 180 Registered Nurses, three-quarters new graduates, were given questionnaires at time of hire and a year later. Using the panel study data, relationships among bureaucratic-professional role conception, actual situation and role discrepancy, and importance of job factors, job satisfaction and alienation, as well as age and length of stay at termination for time of hire only, are explored in this follow-up report. Mean bureaucratic actual situation (t = -5.18, P less than 0.001), bureaucratic role discrepancy (t = -2.77, P less than 0.01) and alienation (t = -2.36, P less than 0.05) increased, while professional actual situation (t = 3.39, P less than 0.01) and importance of job factors (t = 2.33, P less than 0.05) decreased during this first year of employment. In correlational analysis, at the time of hiring relationships were found between numerous variables, including: bureaucratic role conception with alienation (r = 0.17, P less than 0.05); bureaucratic actual situation with alienation (r = 0.19, P less than 0.05); professional role conception with alienation (r = -0.20, P less than 0.05) and with job satisfaction (r = -0.35, P less than 0.001); professional actual situation with job satisfaction (r = -0.19, P less than 0.05); and professional role discrepancy with job satisfaction (r = 0.23, P less than 0.01). A year after hiring, many relationships were found, including professional actual situation with job satisfaction (r = 0.26, P less than 0.05) and alienation with job satisfaction (r = -0.33, P less than 0.01). In stepwise regression analysis, age accounted for 8% of the variance in the importance of job factors (P less than 0.05), professional role conception for 28% of the variance in job satisfaction (P less than 0.001) at time of hire. A year after hiring, alienation and job satisfaction accounted for 12% of the variance in each other (P less than 0.01). As in the correlational analysis, there were many relationships among the bureaucratic-professional variables. Professional socialization theory was utilized in this study, helping to clarify the relationships among staff nurse professionalism, satisfaction and alienation.