Relationship between effort–reward imbalance, job satisfaction, and intention to leave the profession among the medical staff of Qom University of Medical Sciences

Abstract Objective The effort–reward imbalance (ERI) model claims that work that has the characteristics of high effort and low reward has a mutual defect between input and output and this imbalance may result in sustained and long-lasting results. This study aimed to investigate the relationship between the intention to leave the profession (ILP) and ERI and job satisfaction among the medical staff in Qom Province. Methods A descriptive-correlative study was conducted on 202 medical staff in Qom Province based on random sampling in 2018. Demographics checklist, standard ILP, job satisfaction, and Siegrist's ERI questionnaires were used for data collection. The chi-squared test, independent t-test, and one-way Analyses of Variance (ANOVA) were used to analyze data. Results The mean age of employees was 32.04 ± 7.9 years, and 165 (87.1%) of the employees were women. The results showed that the medical staff was willing to leave their profession at a moderate level (40.7 ± 10.3). There was no significant relationship between demographics and ILP. Nevertheless, a significant and inverse relationship was observed between ERI (r:0.318, P < 0.01) and ILP (r: 0.197, P < 0.01). Leave the profession (LP) had a negative correlation with the dimensions of job descriptive index (JDI) such as job, manager, coworker and wage score (P < 0.01, r: −0.147, r: −0.262, r: −0.292, r: −0.271, r: −0.396). Conclusions According to the results, managers need to make sure that their working staff is rewarded as they deserve. According to the results, managers need to ensure that the reward factor is observed for the staff, while an ERI imbalance may contribute to ILP of the staff. On the other hand, it leads to job satisfaction.