Relationship between Job Satisfaction, Professional Image and Nurses Marketing of the Nursing Profession

Abstract
Background: A global shortage of healthcare professionals calls for effective recruitment and retention strategies. One approach that has received increasing interest is the use of internal marketing to reduce occupational and organizational turnover among practicing nurses. The model links nurses' job satisfaction and organizational commitment to internal marketing programs based on principles of relationship mar-keting to build work environments that are more likely to lead to the engagement and retention of nursing staff. As is the case with the internal marketing of nursing, external marketing of nursing integrates marketing theory with related concepts from other areas in business. In the case of internal marketing, these concepts come from organizational psychology and include employee turnover, job satisfaction, and professional image.
Aim: The current study assess the relationship between job satisfaction, professional image and marketing of the nursing profession.
Subjects and Methods: A descriptive correlational design was utilized for this study to achieve the stated aim. The study was conducted at New Kaser El-Aini Teaching Hospital. A samples of 293 nurses were invited to participate in the questionnaire. For the purpose of this study, questionnaire for nurses was developed and utilized that consist of four parts: The first part was related to the nurse personal characteristics, the second part assess the nurses job satisfaction, the third part was related to nurses perception of professional image, the fourth part was about nurses participation in marketing activities.
Results: The study showed that the study sample has low job satisfaction with mean percentage of about 59%. This may be due to work overload and inadequate salary. The study sample have moderate professional image with mean percent-age of 68%. This may be due to experience and about half of the sample holding academic degrees that make their profes-sional image quite good. The study sample have very low promotional activities with mean percentage of about 36%.
Conclusion: The present study concluded that there was a relationship between study sample job satisfaction & pro-fessional image and promotional & marketing activities. As highly satisfied nurses with high professional image perception having high level of promotional and marking activities.
Recommendations: Measure nurses job satisfaction in a regular base in order to find out areas of satisfaction to promote and areas of dissatisfaction to solve and improve. Also the study recommended developing strategies to improve nurses image throughout the nursing curriculum and implementing nursing profession marketing plan.