Journal of health research in community

Introduction and Purpose: Sense of job satisfaction is highly influenced by emotional labor, particularly in management positions, since managers have to deal with a wide range of emotions. Therefore, the current study aims to investigate the relationship between emotional labor and job satisfaction among the executive and nursing managers of the teaching hospitals affiliated to Isfahan University of Medical Sciences.
Methods: This descriptive, correlational study was performed using field survey. The study population consisted of executives and nursing managers of teaching hospitals affiliated to Isfahan University of Medical Sciences. A total of 250 cases were selected through census sampling. The data were gathered by means of translated version of a questionnaire, the validity and reliability of which were approved (α=0/81). Copies of the questionnaire were distributed among the participants, and then the data were analyzed by descriptive and analytical statistics using SPSS, version 18.
Results: The rate of emotional labor among the executive and nursing managers of the selected hospitals was average, while the rates of job satisfaction, deep interaction and genuine emotions were reported to exceed the average, and the rate of superficial interaction was below average. The results demonstrated that there was a direct and statistically significant relationship between the genuine emotions dimension of emotional labor and job satisfaction (P<0/05). However, there were not any statistically significant relationships between the other dimensions of emotional labor (i.e., superficial and deep interactions) and job satisfaction of the participants.
Conclusions: Our results suggest that managers will experience job satisfaction when their emotional labor is close to genuine emotions.