job satisfaction and psychiatric morbidity among resident doctors in selected teaching hospitals in southern nigeria: a web-based survey

Background: job satisfaction is a means of contributing to overall life satisfaction and employees rsquo; mental health. this study aimed to assess the level of job satisfaction and to determine the association between job satisfaction and psychiatric morbidity.materials and methods: this descriptive study was a webbased survey conducted among 187 resident doctors in four selected teaching hospitals in southern nigeria. data were collected within the time period of augustoctober, 2018. job satisfaction was assessed using a singleitem satisfaction measure scored on a 5point likert scale. in addition, psychological morbidity was assessed using the general health questionnaire (ghq)12 as the instrument. the pearson rsquo;s correlation coefficient and the chisquared statistic were used to assess the association between job satisfaction and psychological morbidity.results: the respondents mean age was 36.5 ± 5.4. the majority of them (60.9%) were married, 58.1% were male, and 69.8% were senior registrars. the mean years of work experience was 9.8 ± 4.2. only 50 (26.7%) respondents expressed overall job satisfaction. the mean score of the ghq12 instrument was 14.4 ± 7.4 using the likert scoring scale and 4.0 ± 3.5 using the ghq scoring method. about threequarters (76.7%) and 57.2% of the participants were probable psychiatric cases when the likert and ghq cutoffs were applied, respectively. there was a moderate and significant correlation between job satisfaction scores and scores of the ghq12 instrument (r = 0.5, p = 0.01).conclusion: the respondents demonstrated a low level of job satisfaction and a corresponding high level of psychiatric morbidity.