Tímarit hjúkrunarfræðinga - 2020, Page 91

ritrýnd grein scientific paper
tímarit hjúkrunarfræðinga • 3. tbl. 96. árg. 2020 91
Aim: In 2014, changes were made to the organization of health
care services in Iceland, which led to a reduction in health disputes
and merging of institutions. During the changes, the Health Care
Institution of North Iceland (HSN) was established with six work-
stations. Such administrative decisions can affect the job satisfac-
tion of employees and therefore it is of importance how managers
react to and implement such changes. The purpose of the study
was to examine the job satisfaction of nurses at HSN shortly after
the organizational changes and evaluate their attitudes towards
servant leadership of their nursing managers at HSN as well as ex-
plore the correlation between these two factors.
Method: Data was collected by a survey about job satisfaction and
the Icelandic translation of the Servant Leadership Survey (SLS). The
questionnaire measures the total scores of servant leadership and its
eight dimensions. Participants were nurses at HSN (N = 104) who
received the questionnaire via email. The response rate was 47.1%.
Descriptive and exploratory statistics was used to analyse the data.
Results: Job satisfaction was high and the results revealed a strong
positive correlation between job satisfaction and servant leader-
ship. The overall value of servant leadership was 4.62 of 6.0 possi-
ble (SD = 0.65). The main score each dimension ranged from
3.39–5.01. Three of the eight dimensions of servant leadership
were statistically insignificant (courage, standing back and auhen-
ticity (α < 0.7)). The dimension that scored highest was forgive-
ness, indicating that personal disagreement does not interfere with
communication between nurses and their nursing managers at
HSN.
Conclusions: The results indicate that nurses at newly established
HSN when the study was conducted, were satisfied with their job
and the characteristics of servant leadership were present among
the HSN’s nursing managers. The results also indicate the HSN’s
managers have handled well the organizational changes that have
taken place in the health service in the HSN area.
Keywords: Servant leadership, job satisfaction, organization
changes, nurses, women.
Correspondent: kristin@unak.is
English Summary
Thorarinsdóttir, K., Sigursteinsdóttir, H. Thorberg, K.
Nurses job satisfaction and attitudes towards servant leadership
during organizational reforms in health care services