Background: Healthcare workers and teachers represent two professional categories experiencing high levels of occupational stress. The purpose of the present study was to assess job satisfaction and stress factors among teachers and healthcare professionals in Kosovo, particularly focusing on patterns arising in terms of gender, age or working experience. Subjects and methods: This cross-sectional study included 508 primary and secondary school teachers as well as 300 health workers with a mean age of 41.28 years (SD = 11.19). They completed a self-report questionnaire designed by the authors for the purpose of the research.
Results: Results revealed high job satisfaction for both teachers and healthcare workers, but teachers were significantly more satisfied as compared to healthcare workers. Also, weak stress factors were reported by both groups, but healthcare workers scored significantly higher than teachers across all factors except for ‘physical working conditions’ and ‘difficult cases/tasks to solve’. The strongest stressor reported by both teachers and healthcare workers was ‘inadequate salary’, while the weakest one was ‘Family problems’. Teachers and healthcare workers in Kosovo do not represent high risk categories for job-related stress; indeed, factors were rated as quite weak. However, results should be carefully considered particularly as regards findings on stressors, as there might be other more relevant, context/culturally related stressors which have not been investigated.
Conclusion: Findings on job satisfaction also require further investigation, particularly because of paradoxical results such as teachers being more satisfied than healthcare workers but less likely to report that they would choose the same job again.