The relationship between work status congruency and the job attitudes of full-time and part-time Canadian and Jordanian nurses

Abstract

This study compared the coping resources, coping strategies and job-related attitudes of full-time and part-time nurses. The participants were 554 Canadian nurses and 272 Jordanian nurses. There was only one significant difference between full-time and part-time nurses: full-time Canadian nurses reported higher emotional exhaustion than part-time Canadian nurses. However, a different picture emerged when work status congruency was taken into account. Canadian nurses working full time but preferring to work part time reported greater dissatisfaction with various aspects of their jobs, higher levels of emotional exhaustion and a greater intention to leave. Although not statistically significant, a similar trend was found for the Jordanian nurses. Perceived organizational support was the most important predictor of job-related attitudes for nurses in both countries, even though nurses in both countries rated the support from their hospitals as relatively low. The results indicate that researchers should not treat full-time and parttime workers as homogeneous groups and that hospital administrators in both Canada and Jordan need to address the level of hospital support perceived by their nursing staff.