Relating patient satisfaction to nurses' job satisfaction, job security, and obedience OCBs

Purpose – This paper aims at investigating the relationships among patient satisfaction, and nurses' job security, job satisfaction, and obedience OCBs within the setting of private hospitals in Damascus and Rural Damascus Governorates. Design/methodology/approach – A cross-sectional survey conducted within private hospitals in Damascus and Rural Damascus Governorates had resulted in (325) subjects of nurses, and (393) subjects of patients. Double-translation, face validation, exploratory factor analysis, and Cronbach's alpha were used to validate measures used in this study with respect to the Syrian context. Afterwards, the two samples were aggregated on the basis of hospital-department. That is, 217 cases had resulted, and were used to test the proposed model, and revise it if required. Findings – The results indicate that job security positively influences both job satisfaction and obedience OCBs. Both job satisfaction and obedience OCBs fully mediate the relationship between job security and patient satisfaction. Obedience OCBs partially mediate the relationship between job satisfaction and patient satisfaction. Research limitations/implications – Further investigations in other service-providing settings (e.g. telecommunications) are needed for more evidence of the model validity. Using cross-sectional design in testing causalities has been criticized by several researchers, so longitudinal method is recommended in further investigations for the model. Wider views could be delivered if more of other attitudinal variables are included in the model. Practical implications – Better levels of patient satisfaction could be achieved through enhancing nurses' perceptions towards job security. Job satisfaction would be an important factor in keeping positive levels of patient satisfaction, especially when employment at one private hospital lacks security and stability. Originality/value – This research comes to be one of the first studies to provide evidence of the full mediation that job satisfaction and obedience OCBs play regarding the relationship between job security and patient satisfaction. In addition, this study proves the partial mediation that obedience OCBs play between job satisfaction and patient satisfaction.