Development and psychometric properties of Iranian midwives job satisfaction instrument (MJSI): A sequential exploratory study

Job satisfaction refers to a person's attitude toward his/her job and its various aspects. Job satisfaction improves the quality of service and employees' physical and mental health. The present study aimed to design a valid and reliable instrument to assess Iranian midwives job satisfaction instrument (MJSI). This is a sequential exploratory study for tool design. This study in two phases; (qualitative and tool's psychometric evaluation) was conducted in Ilam, Iran, 2019 years. In the first phase, a qualitative content analysis was carried out by in-depth and semi-structured individual interviews with 10 experts. Then, the pool of items extracted from the qualitative phase was completed by reviewing the existing texts and tools. The second phase of the study involved reducing the overlapping items and validating the tool. In order to investigate the construct validity, a cross sectional study was conducted with the participation of 121 midwives with census sampling. Data analysis was performed by SPSS-19 software using exploratory factor analysis and reliability tests (Cronbach's alpha). In the qualitative phase and after reviewing the existing texts and tools by the research team, a 58-item questionnaire was developed and then entered into the psychometric phase. Then, the tool was finalized with five factors, including: 1) communication features, 2) professional features, 3) responsibility aspects, 4) physical-mental aspects and 5) social aspects, respectively. After the psychometric process, by removing the items in different stages, a specific questionnaire was developed to measure the midwives' job satisfaction with 25 items which explained a total of 49.95% of the total variance. Reliability of the tool was approved by Cronbach's alpha = 0.71 and test-retest with 2-weeks intervals, indicating an appropriate stability for the scale (ICC = 0.898). The 25-item self-reporting midwives job satisfaction tool had acceptable validity and reliability. We recommend the use of this tool for evaluating the job satisfaction of midwives, as well as management and research purposes.