Job satisfaction of nurses employed in rural and urban long-term care facilities

Previous investigators have identified residential differences in the job satisfaction of hospital nurses. However, the degree to which the greater job satisfaction of rural nurses can be generalized beyond hospitals to other work settings, including nursing homes, is unknown. The purpose of this research was to examine the job satisfaction of nurses (registered and licensed practical) employed in both rural and urban nursing homes. A total of 281 nurses from 26 participating nursing homes completed a mailed questionnaire that measured the personal and job-specific characteristics of the nurses and the contextual properties of the facilities in which they worked. The data indicated no statistically significant differences in the overall job satisfaction, or on any of the five subscales of the instrument, between rural and urban nurses. However, a pooled multivariate model identified five factors that predicted the job satisfaction of nurses employed in long-term care facilities: the employees' race and personal income; the employees' perception that their supervisor was interested in their career aspirations; the length of time that the nurses had intended to stay at the time of their hiring; and their current intent to leave.