Adapting the Physician Job Satisfaction Scale to Japan / General Medicine

ABSTRACT

<B>BACKGROUND</B> Understanding the job satisfaction and dissatisfaction of physicians might help to improve health care in Japan. Nevertheless, no job-satisfaction scale for physicians has been validated in Japanese.<BR><B>OBJECTIVE</B> To develop a Japanese version of the Physician Job Satisfaction Scale (JSS), a multi-dimensional questionnaire developed by the Society of General Internal Medicine (SGIM) Career Satisfaction Study Group (CSSG), and to evaluate its reliability and validity.<BR><B>METHODS</B> A Japanese version of the JSS was developed according to the standard protocol of scale translation. A focus group of 7 Japanese physicians was established to identify “Japanese-specific” facets of job satisfaction. After revising the scale based on the discussions of the focus group, a cross-sectional sample of 87 Japanese physicians from hospitals in different regions completed the Japanese version of the Physician Job Satisfaction Scale (JSS-J) to assess its reliability and validity.<BR><B>RESULTS</B> A focus group identified a Japanese-specific facet, “prestige”. Content validity was also established through the focus group. Internal consistency ranged from 0.53 to 0.83. Test-retest reliability, convergent and discriminant validity were good to excellent.<BR><B>CONCLUSIONS</B> Although the overall results suggest that the JSS-J can be applied to assess the job satisfaction of Japanese physicians, further qualitative research is required to refine the JSS-J.