Development of a measure of job satisfaction for dentists and dental auxiliaries.

This paper describes the development of a multidimensional, 38-item measure of job satisfaction appropriate for dentists, dental hygienists, and dental assistants. Items were grouped into the following 12 subscales: income, recognition, opportunity to develop professionally, time to develop professionally, responsibility, non-patient tasks, staff relations, quality of care, leisure time, fatigue, time pressure and general satisfaction. The measure was developed from a set of 45 items included in questionnaires administered to dentists and staff of 126 dental practices in Washington State, USA. Questionnaires were returned by 117, 121 and 106 dentists; 69, 80, and 82 hygienists; and 322, 329, and 320 assistants, respectively, in each of the 3 yr (1979, 1980, 1981). Factor analysis (principal components analysis with varimax rotation) plus categorization of items by a panel of professionals were used to initially group items into subscales. Contribution to internal consistency was the final criterion for an item's inclusion in a subscale. Internal consistency reliability of subscales ranged from 0.68 to 0.95. Statistically significant relationships were found between individual job satisfaction subscales and intent to change job for hygienists and assistants.