Every year, the Ministry of Health hajj staff face an uncertain assignment that often consists of facility change, role redefinition, and new demands and expectations for performance at the sacred places. The posted worker passes through many stages during the journey of hajj assignment starting from selecting him/her (selection mechanism), going to reception at Makkah, transportation, residence, work environment and lastly the reward stage. The Ministry of health is always aspiring to improve the services during hajj in order to optimize the services delivered to the pilgrims. This study was conducted to evaluate the satisfaction levels of healthcare workers (HCW) throughout the whole hajj assignment stages and to identify the factors affecting their satisfaction in order to recommend possible practical methods to increase their satisfaction.
Methodology
A cross-sectional study design was used. The study population was all the posted ministry of health workers in the sacred places. A stratified random cluster sampling technique was used where healthcare facilities were considered the primary sampling unit and healthcare workers were the secondary sampling unit. For data collection, a bilingual (Arabic-English) self-administered questionnaire was designed after modifying some international job satisfaction questionnaires.
Results
Those who were overall satisfied "the fully satisfied and the satisfied" were 653 (91.1%). Stages satisfaction levels showed that 618 (86.2%) were satisfied with the way they were selected, followed by 606 (84.5%) satisfied with work environment, 482 (67.8%) satisfied with reception and transportation and 401 (55.9%) satisfied with residence. The least percentage of satisfaction was with financial compensation 227 (31.6%). Overall satisfaction was highly significantly associated with the way of selection of workers, their reception, residence, work environment and financial compensation (p<0.001). The highest percentage of dissatisfied HCW was detected for those not satisfied with work environment (37.8%) followed by way of selection to work in hajj (36.4%), while the lowest percentage of the overall dissatisfied workers was for financial compensation (13.1%). Regarding dissatisfactory factors for each stage, in the selection stage the highest dissatisfaction was with insufficient time to prepare themselves before hajj (43.1%). For the reception stage, the highest dissatisfaction was with personnel treatment at reception (77.9%). For the residence stage, the most dissatisfaction was for uncleanliness of the residence (86.5%). Relationships among each other and with their supervisors represented the highest dissatisfaction percentages regarding work environment (55.1% and 50.0% consecutively, P<0.001) Workers who chose the friendly treatment as their best reward after hajj assignment represented the highest percentage of overall satisfaction (95.7%). (P=0.026)
Conclusion
The satisfaction level of MOH workers during hajj season 1424H was remarkably high. This study significantly proved that the work environment dissatisfactory factors especially the uncomfortable relationships among the workers themselves as well as with their supervisors were the main determinants in increasing overall dissatisfaction, rather than the financial compensation.