Job Satisfaction among Primary Healthcare Workers in Saudi Arabia and Associated Factors: A Systematic Review

Abstract

1- Abstract Background: There are increasing concerns about job satisfaction in healthcare settings because it has potential roles in staff turnover and the quality of the healthcare services provided. Throughout the COVID-19 pandemic, several healthcare systems worldwide have suffered shortages in healthcare workers attributed to turnover from job dissatisfaction which raised the need to comprehensively assess job satisfaction among healthcare workers. Saudi Arabia is among the countries that suffered deficiencies of healthcare workers, especially in primary healthcare settings, during the COVID-19 pandemic. However, job satisfaction in Saudi Arabia has not been widely discussed regarding its prevalence and associations. Aim: This study aimed to systematically review studies that assessed job satisfaction among healthcare workers in primary healthcare settings in Saudi Arabia. Methods: In this systematic review, I searched multiple databases (PubMed/Medline, The Cochrane Library, and Google Scholar) to identify studies assessing job satisfaction among healthcare workers in primary healthcare settings in Saudi Arabia. Healthcare workers included physicians, nurses, allied health professionals, pharmacists, pharmacy technicians, physical therapists, occupational therapists, psychologists, community health practitioners, and social workers. From each included study, the following information was extracted: the last name of the first author, the year of publication, occupational and sociodemographic characteristics of the included healthcare workers, study design, study setting, methods used to assess job satisfaction, and results. Only studies published in English were considered and no limits were set for the publication year. Results: A total of 8 studies were included. The design of all studies was cross-sectional. The studies were published between 2001 and 2020, yet most of these studies were published during the past 3 years. Most of the studies were conducted in one center or one hospital. The sample size of included studies ranged from 143 to 508 healthcare workers. Overall, the systematic review included 741 nurses, 526 physicians, 498 dental assistants, 380 physicians, 325 pharmacists, and 161 orthodontists. Prevalence of job satisfaction varied widely across studies by job role: 92% among nurses, 80.7% among orthodontists, 76.5% among dental assistants, 73.7% among pharmacists, and only 7.3% among physicians. Most investigated sociodemographic characteristics were not associated with job satisfaction, yet some workplace characteristics related to salary, the flexibility of working hours, and having the chance to select the specialty were associated with job satisfaction. Conclusion: Job satisfaction among healthcare workers in primary healthcare centers in Saudi Arabia was scarcely investigated. The included studies showed heterogeneous results that make concluding a single job satisfaction rate highly inconclusive. The variations in these studies could be attributed to the facts that most studies were conducted in one or two regions, the studies were conducted on healthcare workers with different roles and job descriptions (physicians, nurses, etc), the studies used different data collecting methods to assess job satisfaction, and the studies were published throughout a long period (2001 and 2020). However, many of the included studies detected worrying job satisfaction prevalence rates that should highlight the need to intervene to improve job conditions in the health settings. Still, future wide-scale research with validated tools is needed to precisely indicate the burden of job dissatisfaction in primary healthcare settings in Saudi Arabia. Keywords: Healthcare workers; Primary healthcare centers; Systematic review; Job satisfaction; Saudi Arabia