Abstract
The main objective of this paper is to examine the working conditions of physical therapists and to investigate the level of job satisfaction and organizational commitment under different working conditions. A survey was conducted through structured questionnaire for the physical therapists working in Busan area, and data from 175 therapists were utilized in the final analysis. Survey items included general characteristics of the therapists(sex, age, education, marital status, religion, income, career years, etc.), their working conditions(kinds of organizations they work in, location of PT room, weekly working hours, average number of patients, number of co-workers, equipments/facilities, etc.), and organizational effectiveness measured in terms of job satisfaction and organizational commitment. Major results are as follows: 1) As for the general characteristics of the surveyed physical therapists, male(51.4$\%$) slightly exceeded female(48.6$\%$) and majority(more than 90$\%$) was 20-39 in age. Also, there were more single(57.7$\%$) than married(42.3$\%$), and 54.9$\%$ of the respondents had religion while 45.1$\%$ did not. In terms of the ranks in their organizations, only a few of them(6.9$\%$) were managers, and monthly salary mostly ranged from $\￦$1,000,000 to $\￦$2,500,000. More than half of them worked in various kinds of hospitals, with the remaining in health centers or social welfare institutions. 2) In regard to the working conditions of the respondents, 19.4$\%$ of PT rooms were located in basement areas while the remaining 80.6$\%$ in first to third floors. 34.3$\%$ of them treated 15 patients or less per day, whereas 25.1$\%$ treated 31 patients or more. Also, 52$\%$ recorded physical therapy charts periodically. As for the equipments and facilities, 25.1$\%$ felt 'sufficient' and 40$\%$'insufficient.' 3) The respondents provided various kinds of suggestions for the improvement of their working conditions, where the most important were 'salary raise' and 'reduction of working hours.' In addition, their requests to the PT Association included 'permission of opening of independent practice,' 'permission of legal specialty,' and 'vitalization of the Association.' 4) The comparative analysis of job satisfaction and organizational commitment among different characteristics of the respondents revealed that there was no significant difference between male and female, but in terms of age, the group of 40 or older was highest in both aspects. Besides, therapists who had 15 or more years of hospital career reported higher job satisfaction and organizational commitment than the others. It was also found that the level of organizational commitment increased as the rank of the respondents got higher. There were no significant differences in terms of marital status and religion. 5) Comparison with regard to working conditions showed that therapists employed in university hospitals, health centers and social welfare institutions felt higher job satisfaction and organizational commitment than those in community hospitals and clinics. Also, respondents who worked in basement areas had significantly lower job satisfaction than otherwise. The length of weekly working hours did not really affect the level of job satisfaction, but it was important to maintain 'regular working hours' for the hospitals to improve the employees' organizational commitment. As for the number of patients per day, 'medium level' (21-25 patients) had highest scores in both aspects. And, finally, sufficiency of equipments and facilities was found to be important for the improvement of organizational commitment.
(Department of Health Care Administration, Inje University)
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