Factors affecting job satisfaction of operatingroom nurses during the COVID-19 period

It is necessary to take precautions for operating room nurses, who are in close contact with the patient during epidemic periods to prevent fear, anxiety and related factors that may reduce job satisfaction. Nurses' well-being and emotional resilience are imperative for the continuation of primary health care, concurrently, nurses' practice and professional commitment throughout the COVID-19 pandemic. The commitment of nurses to their profession directly affects their job satisfaction, their feeling of self-sufficiency, labor continuity, ensuring the safety of the patient and the quality of the care they provide. The present study was conducted as a descriptive study to determine the factors affecting the job satisfaction of nurses working in the operating room during the COVID-19 period. Operating room nurses working in Istanbul University, Istanbul Medical Faculty Hospital were included. We used "Personal Information Form" consisting of 20 questions to obtain the introductory information and the "Minnesota Job Satisfaction Scale" consisting of 20 questions to examine the job satisfaction of all participating nurses. Statistical analyses were performed with SPSS (Statistical Package for the Social Sciences) version 25.0 (IBM Corp., Armonk, NY, USA). Out of all participating nurses 80% are aged between 30-39 years, 71% are women, 65% are married, 49% have children and 74% are undergraduates. The results demonstrated that job satisfaction of nurses was low in 20%, medium in 58% and high in 22%. Meanwhile, results demonstrated that job satisfaction was increasing with increasing age of the participant and was decreasing as the number of cases undergoing surgery increased. Nurses who evaluated the operating room environment positively had higher job satisfaction compared to ones who evaluated it negatively. The study revealed that the job satisfaction of the nurses who were infected with the COVID-19 virus was statistically significantly higher than those who did not get the virus. The research findings were discussed in the context of the literature and suggestions were made.