The correlation between missed care needs and job satisfaction of nurses in pediatric clinics

Aim: This study was conducted to determine the missed care needs, their reasons, job satisfaction levels, and the correlation between them for nurses in pediatric clinics. Methods: The population of this descriptive study consisted of 130 nurses working in the pediatric clinics of a university hospital. The data of this study in which ethics committee approval and institutional permission were obtained were collected through the online Nurse Information Form, MISSCARE Survey-Pediatric version, and Minnesota Job Satisfaction Scale between April-June 2022. Descriptive statistics and Pearson correlation analysis were used to evaluate the data. Results: The present study included 109 nurses who wanted to participate (84% of the population). The mean age of the nurses was 30.21±1.25 years, 74.3% were female, 90.8% had undergraduate at least, and 51.4% worked in pediatric clinics for five years or more found to work less, respectively. In their last shifts; it was found that nurses often could not administer medication on time (22.9%), not provide developmental care (19.3%), and not support emotionally to the children and their families (18.3%). The means of the Minnesota Job Satisfaction Scale and MISSCARE Survey-Reasons for Missed Care scores were determined 3.23±0.78 (Internal Satisfaction 3.27±0.78; External Satisfaction 3.16±0.89) and 2.63±0.67 (Resources 3.02±0.68, Communication 2.38±0.77 and Material Resources 2.58±0.84), respectively. There was a strong positive correlation between the total and sub-dimension mean scores of the Minnesota Job Satisfaction Scale, and a moderate to strong correlation between the MISSCARE Survey-Reasons for Missed Care total and sub-dimension mean scores (p<0.001). Conclusion: This study revealed that the job satisfaction of the nurses was moderate, their internal satisfaction was higher than their external satisfaction, and the reason for missed care needs was mostly the resources and material resources. Since the dynamics of clinics and hospital organizations may be different, it can be suggested that missed care needs, their reasons, and job satisfaction should be actualized separately for each institution/hospital. According to the results of this study, it may be useful to develop action plans and evaluate them for the solutions of reasons.