International Journal of Management and Humanity Sciences. Vol., 4 (1), 4488-4493, 2015
Available online at http://www.ijmhsjournal.com
ISSN 2322-424X©2015
The Relationship between Religious Beliefs, Optimism and Job
Satisfaction among Nurses
1
*
2
Saeideh Bazazian , and Zahra Ziaeipour
1- Ph.D, Faculty of humanities, Islamic Azad University, Abhar Branch, Iran
2- M.A, Islamic Azad University, Abhar Branch, Iran
*Corresponding author Email: [email protected]
Abstract
Current study was a correlating-descriptive study that investigated the relationship
between religious beliefs and optimism with job satisfaction. Sample consisted of 110
nurses from Razi Psychiatric Hospital of Tabriz that were selected by a simple
random sampling. Participants filled out Religious Orientation Scale (ROS), Life
Orientation Test (LOT) and Job Descriptive Index (JDI). Results of Pearson’s
correlation coefficient showed that religious beliefs had a significant relation with job
satisfaction, nature of work, salary, benefits and work condition. But religious beliefs
do not have a significant relation with supervision, co-workers and job improvements.
There was not any significant correlation between extra, intra religious beliefs and
none of job satisfaction elements among nurses. However, a significant correlation
has been observed between optimism and job satisfaction, work nature and
condition. Optimism did not have any significant association with supervision, coworkers, promotions, salary and benefits. Regression analysis determined that
religious beliefs explained 0.6% variation of job satisfaction, and 0.6% variation of
work condition. Optimism and religious beliefs determined 11% variance of the work
nature. Findings of the study can provide helpful information for researchers and
hospital officials.
Key words: Spirituality, Life orientation, Adjustment, Nursing
Introduction
Religious beliefs and behaviors are human needs in the world. Need to understand the origin of the
universe, life goal, human role in the life, human communication style with others and human response to the
world are many different kind of religious needs (Fontana, 2003). Religious beliefs are called to a set of
cognitive propositions that creates a meaning and purpose, a sense of belonging to a holy and great religion,
hoping to assist the Lord in difficult circumstances of life and having psychological support in the life
(Taleban, 2001). In the recent century, religion and its effects have been investigated in the psychology.
Famous psychologists such as Freud (1928), Allport (1964), Maslow (1964), Fromm (1996) had some
investigations on the issue. However, the relationship between religion and positive psychology has not been
studied yet (Shahani, 2004). Mac Farland (2009) described that men with high and organized religious
activities had more mental health than other men. The results of a study found that people with strong
religious beliefs had considerably more mental health during therapy (Wildes et al. 2008). Moreover,
forgiveness, religious coping, daily spiritual actions and behaviors were significantly predictors of mental
health (Rippentrop, 2005). Patients who had strong spiritual feeling reported more mental health and had
positive view regarding to their well being than other patients (Mays et al. 2004).
A study showed that have a true devotion and obedience to the God give the person a huge and
incredible strength, a source of spiritual, emotional and moral energy that helps in coping with depression
that is created by environmental stresses (Pajevic, Sinanovic, and Hasanovic, 2005). Optimism as a positive
psychological discussion has been studied and referred to a direction in which the positive outcomes are
expected (Boyri, 2007). Optimism is a mood or attitude associated with an expectation about the social or
material future -one which the evaluator regards as socially desirable, to his/her advantage or pleasure
(Tiger, 1979). He considers optimism inner element of a human, a distinguished and adaptive feature.
According to Scheier and Carver (1985), optimism can be defined as a global expectation that good things
Intl. J. Manag. Human. Sci. Vol., 4 (1), 4488-4493, 2015
will happen more than bad things in the future (Kajbaf, Arizi, Khodabakhsh, 2006). Recent studies illustrated
that optimistic people have more stable and positive psychological mood and coping strategy than others
(Koo and Lee, 2014).
Optimism can affect an individual’s mood that is called affective context. Having a good mood, creates a
constant sense of satisfaction and has a positive effect on quality of life (Miniszewska, Chodkiewicz,
Ograczyk, and Zalewska - Janowska, 2013). Optimism has shown a positive association with perseverance,
general reputation, academic achievement, athletic, military, occupational, political, family, health and
longevity and lack of emotional trauma (Fontana, 2003). 79 out of 100 hundred studies suggested a positive
association and just one study described a negative association between them (Sheikhol eslami, Stode
Naverdi, Zeinali, and Talebi, 2013). Job satisfaction determines individual’s negative or positive attitude to
his/her job and different factors influence on that. (Ravi,vanaki, Mirzaei, and Kazemnejad, 2003). 37% of job
satisfaction is related to factors such as work setting, work commitment, work load and staff shortage
(Shaver and Lacey, 2003). According to studies, about 62 to 67% variance of job satisfaction is unknown
(Attari, Abbasi, and Mehrabizade, 2006, Ford, Heinen, and Langkamer, 2007). One of the most important
aspects of job satisfaction among nurses is moral and spiritual values. Moral values are rooted in nurses’
beliefs (Nori and Naser, 2009; Ruggiero, 2005). Not only job enjoyment, satisfaction, commitment and
comfort are increased by spiritual aspects but also productivity will be increased and the absence of job and
leave of service will be reduced (Emami and Nasr Abadi, 2007). Researchers believe that spirituality is an
important and indivisible part of nursing (Ravi, and et al, 2009). In fact, there is a significant association
between optimism and mental health (Aghaei, Raeisi Dehkardi and Atash pour, 2007).
Moreover, a negative association has been shown between religious beliefs and Anxiety among nursing
students (Ganji and Hosseini, 2010). According to theoretical bases and the study background, the present
study tries to find the impotency of any influential factors in defining job satisfaction indexes. In addition to
determining the share of every effective factor in describing job satisfaction indexes, the study is
investigating the share of religious beliefs and optimism in describing and predicating changes of job
satisfaction indexes. According to the presented objectives and questions, the following hypotheses have
been explored:
 There is an association between religious beliefs and job satisfaction and its elements among nurses.
 There is an association between optimism and job satisfaction and its elements among nurses.
 Optimism and religious beliefs predict job satisfaction and its elements.
Methodology
The present article is a descriptive-correlational study. 110 nurses (50 female and 60 male) were selected
by random sampling. They have worked since 2012 at Razi Psychiatric Hospital of Tabriz. 90.9% of subjects
had undergraduate certificate and 9.1% of them were graduated people. Their work experiences were
reported with Mean 8.78 and Mean and Standard Deviation of their age were respectively 33.09, 6.224.
Three scales were used in this study including: Religious Orientation Scale (ROS), Life Orientation Test
(LOT), Job Descriptive Index (JDI).
Religious Orientation Scale (ROS): has been provided for measurement of religious orientation on the
basis of Allport’s theoretical efforts. He made a scale with 20 items that 11 of them were related to extrinsic
orientation and 9 were connected to intrinsic orientation. According to Allport’s studies, the correlation
between extrinsic orientation and intrinsic orientation was 21%. The scale validity was measured by Jan
Bozorgi (2007) with validity of 73% on the basis of Cronbach’s alpha.
Life Orientation Test (LOT): that was developed by Scheier and Carver (1985) and has been validated by
Khoda Bakhshi (2004) for evaluating optimism of respondents. This eight-item scale measures extend of
individuals expectations regarding to life outcomes. It consists of four questions with negative statements
and four with positive ones. The negative items are reversely scored. The respondents must respond to fouritem questions with degree of agree, highly agree, disagree, and highly disagree. The reliability reported
based on Cronbach’s alpha 85% among foreigners and 74% among Iranians (Kajbaf, and et al, 2006).
Job descriptive index (JDI): has been utilized in job satisfaction questionnaire (Smith, Kendall and Hyvlyn,
1969) in order to explore job satisfaction. This questionnaire is one of the most common and precise scale
for job satisfaction that has been developed by Smith and et al (1969) at Kernall University of the United
States for the first time. It is recognized as a job satisfaction questionnaire of Smith and et al (1969). This
scale consists of 54 items that generally evaluates six facets of job satisfactions, including satisfaction of
work nature, co-workers, supervision, promotions, salary and benefits. Scoring is based on the five-point
Likert scale from strongly disagree (score 1) to strongly agree (score 0). The higher score shows the higher
job satisfaction. In addition to subscales, we can predicate the general job satisfaction score for each one.
In Iranian population, Cronbach’s reliability coefficient of the scale was 89% (Kajbaf andet al, 2006).
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Pearson correlation coefficient and Regression analysis (in software SPSS 19) were used for data
analysis.
Results
Pearson’s correlation coefficient test has been applied for the investigation of the first and second
hypothesis based on association between religious beliefs, optimism and job satisfaction and its items
among nurses. Results of correlation coefficient between religious beliefs, optimism and job satisfaction and
its items have been illustrated in Table1.
Table 1. Correlation between variables
variables
religious beliefs
extrinsic religious beliefs
Intrinsic religious beliefs
optimism
**: p<0.01
*: p<0.05
work nature supervision
*
0.024
0.274
0.188
**
0.004
0.090
0.207
0.240
0.200
co-workers promotion
0.351
0.329
0.473
0.141
0.066
0.911
0.133
0.800
salary, and
benefits
**
0.001
0.615
0.269
0.156
work
setting
**
0.009
0.615
0.658
*
0.043
job
satisfaction
**
0.009
0.297
0.174
*
0.037
On the basis of Table 1, there were significant relations between religious beliefs and job satisfaction,
work nature, salary, benefits and work setting.
But there were not significant correlations between religious beliefs and supervision, co-workers and
promotions. In addition, a significant association between intrinsic and extrinsic religious beliefs and job
satisfaction and none of its items among nurses has not been observed.
There was a significant correlation between optimism and job satisfaction, work nature and work setting
However, a significant correlation between optimism and supervision, co-workers, promotions, salary and
benefits has not been shown (see Table 1).
The stepwise regression has been used for third hypothesis test. Optimism and religious beliefs were
independent variables and job satisfaction was a dependent variable. Results of regression analysis have
been applied in Table 2.
Table 2. Regression analysis summery
2
model
R
R
B
Beta
consent
0.249
0.062
1.969
Religious beliefes
0.016
0.249
Dependent variable: job satisfaction
T
4.878
2.673
sig
0.000
0.009
Variable of the religious beliefs can predict job satisfaction more than optimism (See Table 2). Religious
beliefs could explain 0.6% variance of job satisfaction. According to statistics of t, religious beliefs (β= 0.249)
colud explain changes of job satisfaction with a significant level of 0.95%. Subscales of job satisfaction,
work nature and work setting had a significant association with religious beliefs and optimism. Regression
analysis has been implied for exploring the description capability of variance of mentioned variables. So, the
optimism and religious beliefs were analyzed by the regression as independent variables and work nature
was considered as a dependent (See Table 3).
Table 3. Regression analysis summery
2
model
R
R
B
Beta
1: consent
0.274
0.075
1.647
optimism
0.078
0.274
2: consent
0.334
0.112
0.814
optimism
0.073
0.257
Religious beliefes
0.014
0.193
Dependent variable: work nature
T
3.613
2.959
1.362
2.815
2.107
sig
0.000
0.004
0.174
0.006
0.037
Both of independent variables (optimism and religious beliefs) explained variance of the work nature. In
2
fact, optimism explained 0.7% of work nature variance. In second step, the religious beliefs changed R to
11%. So, it was increased with the entrance of new variables (religious beliefs) to 4%. Observed F was
significant and 11% of work nature variance was explained by religious beliefs and optimism. For the first
step, variable of optimism (β= 0.274) described changes related to work nature with a significant level of
95%. In the second step, variable of religious beliefs (β= 0.193) explained changes related to work nature
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with a significant level of 95%.For determining how much religious beliefs and optimism can explaine
subscale of work setting, the regression analysis has been applied.
Table 4. Regression analysis summery
2
model
R
R
B
Beta
consent
0.247
0.061
1.091
Religious beliefes
0.024
0.247
Dependent variable: work setting
T
1.838
2.653
sig
0.069
0.009
Table 4 shows that among two independent variables (optimism and religious beliefs), just religious beliefs
predicated the work setting and explained 0.6% of work setting variance. So, observed F was significant and
religious beliefs (β=0.247) with regarding to statistics of t explained changes of work setting with significant
level of 95%.
Discussion
The present findings showed the associations between general score of religious beliefs and job
satisfaction and its subscales, including work nature, salary, benefits and work setting. However, a significant
association between religious beliefs and supervision, promotions has not been shown. There was not any
significant association between intrinsic and extrinsic religious beliefs and job satisfaction and none of its
subscales among nurses.
The present results were in accordance with findings of Ravi and et al (2009), Jon Bozorgi (2007) and
Rajaei et al (2008). Religion is a comprehensive program for human life and has an effective role in human
mental health (Jan Bozorgi, 2007). Studies show that religious attitudes have a negative association with
anxiety, depression, aggression and hypochondria. Religion has an important role in the prevention of social
problems. Many theorists such as Freud, Jung, and William James consider the religion as a strong factor
against social problems (Sheikholeslami et al. 2013). People who have more religious beliefs have stronger
social connections. In fact, they can use more sources of social support (McFarland, 2009). Religious people
have more concentration on the others’ needs and problems and less concentration on their own problems.
Due to this issue, they have less mental disorders rather than others. Nursing job needs more concentration
on others problems. This feature is stronger among religious people. Religion builds a higher coping with
stress, stronger social support, a hope and positive emotions such as better life, life satisfaction, happiness
and mental health. Thus, nurses that have higher mental health can provide better services. They will have
higher job satisfaction. Results show that job satisfaction is predictable by optimism among nurses. The
findings are accordance with research results of Shahani and et al, 2004, Boyri, 2007, Aghaei et al, 2007,
Daneshfar, 2010). Optimists are better problem solvers (Peterson, 2000). They are more successful in
coping to problems and stressful job events. Optimism creates more perceptive control and builds positive
attributes of successes and defeats over present and future. So, they put more efforts for their educational
and professional activities. They are open to challenges and expect more success. The results of a study on
the university students show that optimism has a positive association with motivation and successful
educational outcomes (Mohebbi Noroldinvand, Shahani Yeylagh and Pasha Sharifi, 2014). If we consider job
satisfaction and success as an adaptive feeling, optimism is one of the variables that can predict it. Findings
of variety studies suggest that optimism has a good effect on the health and adaptive behaviors. It helps to
coping with stressful conditions (Kajbaf, and et al, 2006). According to the present study, optimistic nurses
have more adaptive behaviors in coping with stresses of nursing job. In other words, optimistic nurses have
more job satisfaction than others that have less optimistic view. Optimistic people have exaggerated
assessment of their skills and remember positive events more than negative ones. They make better
associations by interchanging between their positive energy and their environment. In this way, they also
exhibit a greater satisfaction with their work setting, co-workers and job.
In our country, religious attitude has been as a social pressure and because of this reason nurses are
likely to pretend to be more religious. Some of the nurses refused to answer the questions about job
satisfaction items. So, it is better to be more cautious about explaining findings and generalization of results
that are drawn from self report measures. In order to generalize the results, more investigations are
suggested about religious beliefs, optimism and job satisfaction among different job groups and nurses.
Moreover, other questionnaires are recommended for future studies. In our country, as we said before,
religious attitudes can be followed with the social pressure. Demographic information has not been included
in our questionnaires except gender, educational level and work experiences. There is a possibility that
people do not express their opinions frankly or they may try to show themselves more religious. Using the
self report questionnaires in the study can create a problem for generalizing the results due to the subjects
‘bias responses.
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Furthermore, nurses of Razi Psychiatric Hospital of Tabriz were a sample of the study that cannot
represent an entire population of nurses. So, it is better to be cautious in generalizing the findings.
Identifying the enhancing factors is crucial among nurses because they are the biggest human resources.
They have an important role in providing quality of services and their satisfaction and effectiveness affect
success of organizations. On the other hand, their job satisfaction affects their quality of patients care. An
investigation of religious beliefs, optimism and job satisfaction among different kinds of jobs is suggested. In
order to increase the generalization of the results, a similar study among more representative samples of all
nurses, was suggested.
Acknowledgement
The authors have appreciated the assistance of Razi Psychiatric Hospital of Tabriz staff and nurses.
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