Date of Award

2016

Document Type

Dissertation

Degree Name

Doctor of Education (EdD)

Committee Chair

Gail Casterline

Abstract

Occupational health nursing is a specialized field of nursing, employing only about 1% of total U.S. nurses (Moore & Moore, 2014). For this reason, it is often difficult to recruit prospective occupational health nurses (OHN). The need for OHN has grown in the auto industry in 2014 and 2015 due to increased production rates. It is important to determine whether or not current OHN, specifically in the auto manufacturing field, are satisfied and plan to stay in their current positions. Identifying reasons for job stress and job satisfaction helps leadership to correct deficiencies and develop and maintain a positive work environment that leads to the retention of the OHN. Thirty-eight occupational health nurses, working in five auto manufacturing plants in the South, volunteered to describe overall job satisfaction and stress in general as measured anonymously through the Job Descriptive Index, Job in General Index, and Stress in General Index (Bowling Green State University, 2009). Nurses in this sample were generally satisfied with their jobs and identified low workplace stress levels. Nurses were most satisfied with supervision, coworkers, and their jobs in general. The lowest satisfaction scores were for pay and opportunities for promotion. Based on this study, nurse leadership should implement pay increases for the OHN and also implement tiered levels of promotion for nurses to advance professionally. Research concerning job satisfaction and stress levels of occupational health nurses needs to be expanded to include multiple occupational settings.

Creative Commons License

Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

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