Job satisfaction, income, workload, workplace, and demographics of Japanese radiologists in the 2008 survey

Impact of Work Environment on Job Satisfaction among Interventional Radiologists in Japan: A Cross-sectional Study

Purpose

This study aims to measure job satisfaction among interventional radiology physicians in Japan and analyze the factors affecting job satisfaction.

Material and Methods

A web-based survey was conducted among the members of the Japanese Society of Interventional Radiology between October and December 2021. Participants were questioned regarding their job satisfaction, workplace, work status, and demographic information. Principal component analysis was applied to 15 reasons related to job satisfaction, and the factors affecting job satisfaction were analyzed.

Results

Valid responses were obtained from 901 (31.9%) of the 2,824 interventional radiology physicians invited to participate. Job satisfaction was reported as "very satisfied" in 79 (8.8%), "moderately satisfied" in 426 (47.3%), "neither satisfied nor dissatisfied" in 230 (25.5%), "moderately dissatisfied" in 133 (14.8%), and "very dissatisfied" in 33 (3.7%) respondents. Thus, there were 505 (56.0%) satisfied physicians. Three principal components were extracted from the reasons for job satisfaction. Job satisfaction tended to be higher among those who reported performing a higher number of interventional radiology procedures and was positively associated with a higher rate of work time dedicated to interventional radiology and the first principal component (the environment of clinical practice, research, and interventional radiology education). The third principal component (salary and work environment) and the absence of an "IkuBoss" [a boss who takes initiative in creating a work environment supportive of the work-life balance of colleagues] were associated with lower job satisfaction.

Conclusions

More than half the participants reported high job satisfaction. Job satisfaction of interventional radiology physicians in Japan was positively associated with a favorable clinical, research, and educational environment and negatively associated with the absence of an "IkuBoss," noninterventional radiology work, overtime work, and salary.

Mapping the Psychosocialcultural Aspects of Healthcare Professionals' Information Security Practices: Systematic Mapping Study

Background

Data breaches in health care are on the rise, emphasizing the need for a holistic approach to mitigation efforts.

Objective

The purpose of this study was to develop a comprehensive framework for modeling and analyzing health care professionals’ information security practices related to their individual characteristics, such as their psychological, social, and cultural traits.

Methods

The study area was a hospital setting under an ongoing project called the Healthcare Security Practice Analysis, Modeling, and Incentivization (HSPAMI) project. A literature review was conducted for relevant theories and information security practices. The theories and security practices were used to develop an ontology and a comprehensive framework consisting of psychological, social, cultural, and demographic variables.

Results

In the review, a number of psychological, social, and cultural theories were identified, including the health belief model, protection motivation theory, theory of planned behavior, and social control theory, in addition to some social demographic variables, to form a comprehensive set of health care professionals’ characteristics. Furthermore, an ontology was developed from these theories to systematically organize the concepts. The framework, called the psychosociocultural (PSC) framework, was then developed from the various combined psychological and sociocultural attributes of the ontology. The Human Aspect of Information Security Questionnaire was adopted as a comprehensive tool for gathering staff security practices as mediating variables in the framework.

Conclusions

Data breaches occur often in health care today. This frequency has been attributed to the lack of experience of health care professionals in information security, the lack of development of conscious care security practices, and the lack of motivation to incentivize health care professionals. The frequent data breaches in health care threaten the mutual trust between health care professionals and patients, which implicitly impacts the quality of the health care service. The modeling and analysis of health care professionals’ security practices can be conducted with the PSC framework by combining methods of statistical survey, observations, and interviews in relation to PSC variables, such as perceptions (perceived benefits, perceived threats, and perceived barriers) or psychological traits, social factors, cultural factors, and social demographics.

Job satisfaction and perceived stress among radiology technicians: a questionnaire survey in relation to sociodemographic and occupational risk factors

PURPOSE

To evaluate job satisfaction and perceived stress among radiology technicians in relation to sociodemographic and occupational risk factors.

METHODS

A total of 207 radiology technicians were included in this questionnaire-based study. The questionnaire elicited items on sociodemographic and occupational characteristics along with Minnesota Satisfaction Questionnaire (MSQ) and Perceived Stress (PSS) scales to assess job satisfaction and the perceived stress, respectively.

RESULTS

Multivariate analysis revealed that more years in practice (B: - 4.80, BCa 95% CI - 7.26 to - 2.47), being uncomfortable with working in a radiation environment (B: - 6.30, BCa 95% CI - 9.62 to - 2.61) and the use of public transport to get to work (B: - 3.62, BCa 95% CI - 6.53 to - 1.03) were significant predictors of poorer job satisfaction, whereas break time (B: 8.54, BCa 95% CI 4.63-12.14) and following scientific literature (B: 8.32, BCa 95% CI 3.37-12.89) significantly predicted the better job satisfaction. Being satisfied with the current job (p < 0.015) and high-income class (p = 0.005) were associated with lower perceived stress levels, while higher perceived stress level (B: - 0.48, BCa 95% CI - 0.66 to - 0.32) was also a significant predictor of poorer job satisfaction.

CONCLUSION

In conclusion, our findings revealed job satisfaction and perceived stress of radiology technicians to be at moderate levels and to be negatively correlated with each other. Our findings emphasize the importance of continuing education, in-service refresh training and continuing practice of regularly updating self-knowledge along with balance workload, income and safety at work to improve job satisfaction among radiology technicians.

Application of infrared thermography in computer aided diagnosis

The invention of thermography, in the 1950s, posed a formidable problem to the research community: What is the relationship between disease and heat radiation captured with Infrared (IR) cameras? The research community responded with a continuous effort to find this crucial relationship. This effort was aided by advances in processing techniques, improved sensitivity and spatial resolution of thermal sensors. However, despite this progress fundamental issues with this imaging modality still remain. The main problem is that the link between disease and heat radiation is complex and in many cases even non-linear. Furthermore, the change in heat radiation as well as the change in radiation pattern, which indicate disease, is minute. On a technical level, this poses high requirements on image capturing and processing. On a more abstract level, these problems lead to inter-observer variability and on an even more abstract level they lead to a lack of trust in this imaging modality. In this review, we adopt the position that these problems can only be solved through a strict application of scientific principles and objective performance assessment. Computing machinery is inherently objective; this helps us to apply scientific principles in a transparent way and to assess the performance results. As a consequence, we aim to promote thermography based Computer-Aided Diagnosis (CAD) systems. Another benefit of CAD systems comes from the fact that the diagnostic accuracy is linked to the capability of the computing machinery and, in general, computers become ever more potent. We predict that a pervasive application of computers and networking technology in medicine will help us to overcome the shortcomings of any single imaging modality and this will pave the way for integrated health care systems which maximize the quality of patient care.

A comparison of job satisfaction of community health workers before and after local comprehensive medical care reform: a typical field investigation in Central China

Background

The government of China promulgated new medical care reform policies in March 2009. After that, provincial-level governments launched new medical care reform which focusing on local comprehensive medical care reform (LCMR). Anhui Province is an example of an area affected by LCMR, in which the LCMR was started in October 2009 and implemented in June 2010. The objective of this study was to compare the job satisfaction (JS) of community health workers (CHWs) before and after the reform in Anhui Province.

Methods

A baseline survey was carried out among 813 community health workers (CHWs) of 57 community health centers (CHCs) (response rate: 94.1%) and an effect evaluation survey among 536 CHWs of 30 CHCs (response rate: 92.3%) in 2009 and 2012 respectively. A self-completion questionnaire was used to assess the JS of the CHWs (by the job satisfaction scale, JSS).

Results

The average scores of total JS and satisfaction with pay, contingent rewards, operating procedures and communication in the effect evaluation survey were statistically significantly higher than those of the baseline survey (P<0.05). The average score of satisfaction with promotion (2.55±1.008) in the effect evaluation survey was statistically significantly lower than that in the baseline survey (2.71±0.730) (P=0.002). In both surveys, the average scores of satisfaction with pay, benefits and promotion were statistically significantly lower than the others (all P<0.05).

Conclusions

After two years’ implementation of the LCMR, CHWs’ total JS have a small improvement. However, CHWs have lower satisfaction in the dimensions of pay, promotion and benefits dimensions before and after the LCMR. Therefore, policy-makers should take corresponding measures to raise work reward of CHWs and pay more attention to CHWs’ professional development to further increase their JS.