Employees of Children's Hospitals Just as Stressed but More Satisfied

PRLog (Press Release) - Jun 03, 2009 -
Employees surveyed from children’s hospitals have given “Job Stress” the same score as the national healthcare norm (64 percent favorable). Although the score illustrates that most children’s hospital employees rate their stress at the same amount as the rest of the healthcare industry, additional data shows that children’s hospital employees have greater job satisfaction.

Higher satisfaction in children’s hospitals may root from greater feelings of fulfillment; 84 percent of children’s hospital employees leave work often with a good feeling of accomplishment, compared to a national healthcare norm of 74 percent.  Additionally, 86 percent of children’s hospital employees find their work personally rewarding, while the national healthcare norm consists of only 80 percent.

Kara Rovelli, an RN, staff nurse at Connecticut Children’s Medical Center, is one employee who experiences a regular feeling of accomplishment: "I can go home every night and feel this sense that I changed the world; even if it's just something small that I did for a child, I just feel so rewarded, and I wouldn't change that for anything."

As far as reward that comes directly from working in children’s hospitals, Dalazza Robles, a Connecticut Children’s interpreter/cultural mediator, offered one example: the chance to make a child feel as if “they’re not really in the hospital.”  Robles recognizes this opportunity as being the best part of her job, aside from helping families.

Whether job satisfaction in children’s hospitals grows from greater feelings of accomplishment, personal reward or any of the several other survey items where children’s hospitals exceed the national norm, employees of children’s hospitals certainly do not appear to be affected by job stress.