Assessment of the Impact of the Job Satisfaction on Anxiety Level among Hospital Nurses in Lebanon: A Cross-Sectional Study

Abstract

Introduction: During the past 4 years Lebanon suffered from a major economic crisis and a health care system crisis after COVID pandemic. Nurses as a part of the healthcare system, had to deal with the impact of both crisis and the consequences. "In this study, job satisfaction and anxiety levels of nurses from 4 Lebanese public and private hospitals were assessed. Correlations of the job satisfaction and anxiety levels among them and with sociodemographic, professional and socio-economic ones, were evaluated. Objectives: This study helps to determine the prevalence of the psychological distress and its association with the job satisfaction among hospital nurses during economic crisis in South and Beirut hospitals. Materials and Methods: It is a cross-sectional study that aims to identify a cause-effect relation between hospital nurses Job satisfaction, level of anxiety and different sociodemographic and professional characteristics. The study was done through an online questionnaire including: an introduction to the study, an agreement of participation, the sociodemographic and professional information of the participants, the Generalized Anxiety Disorder Assessment (GAD-7) rating scale and the Nursing Workplace Satisfaction Questionnaire “NWSQ”. Results: Findings confirmed a significant relationship among salary decreasing due to economic crisis and job dissatisfaction (Spearman’s rho = 0.157; p-value =0.009); and significant relationship between lower levels of job satisfaction and higher anxiety levels of Lebanese hospital nurses (Spearman’s rho = 0.367; p-value <0.0001). Additionally, further correlations among sociodemographic and professional variables had explored. Conclusion: The study shows the correlation between the decreased nurses job satisfaction with the increased level of anxiety among nurses in Beirut and South of Lebanon hospitals, a negative correlation between salaries during the economic crisis in parallel with the average spending per month and the total job satisfaction, and a positive correlation between the job satisfaction and the anxiety levels. Also, both anxiety level and job satisfaction among nurses were subjective to the hospital locations and categories, the sociodemographic and professional characteristics and the economic crisis which has a significant impact on the nursing physiological status.

Keywords

• job satisfaction
• anxiety
• public hospitals
• private hospitals
• nurses
• economic crisis