Impact of nurse faculty job stress on job satisfaction and intent to remain in academia

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In order to maintain sufficient nursing faculty to meet the challenges posed by the 2010 Institute of Medicine (IOM) report, schools of nursing must determine how to decrease faculty job stress, promote job satisfaction, and improve faculty retention. This dissertation's primary aim is to examine the relationships between job stress, job satisfaction, and intent to remain in academia among nursing faculty with research focused doctoral degree (RFDD), who teach at baccalaureate level or higher. Its secondary aim is to identify predictors of these same phenomena. A tertiary aim is to test the applicability of the effort-reward imbalance (ERI) model to effectively explain the nature of the relationships between job stress, job satisfaction, and intent to remain in academia among RFDD prepared nursing faculty who participated in this study. Responses from 363 nursing faculty members who met the inclusion criteria for this study were analyzed. The questionnaire used included the following components: Effort-Reward Imbalance (ERI) which measured job stress, Job In General (JIG) which measured job satisfaction, Job Descriptive Index (JDI) which measured faculty satisfaction with coworkers, present job, pay, promotion and supervision, and a single question on intent to remain in academia (IRA). Forty-seven percent of faculty reported job stress, 92% (n=326) reported job satisfaction, and 81% (n=275) reported intent to remain in academia. Statistical analysis indicated that demographic factors, such as age, gender, and years as faculty, did not influence job stress, but level of formal education and number of hours worked on the job were influential factors of job stress. A logistic regression showed that job satisfaction was a significant predictor of intent to remain in academia. Job satisfaction also mediated the relationship between intent to remain in academia and job stress. This study indicates that although nursing faculty did report job stress, they also reported job satisfaction and intent to remain in academia.