Abstract
Objective : The objective of this study was to survey the job satisfaction and turnover intention of 119 emergency medical technicians who are fire fighters and, at the same time, provide emergency patients with first aid, to examine the correlation between their job satisfaction and turnover intention, and to provide basic materials for the human resource management of 119 emergency medical technicians. Method : The survey was conducted with 152 119 emergency medical technicians working at fire stations in an area of Gyeonggi-do during the period from July 15 to September 14, 2009. Job satisfaction was measured with a tool developed by Kim Sun-sim and Kwon Hye-ran (2002) based on the Index of Work Satisfaction, and turnover intention with the tool developed by Becker (2002) and translated and used by Cho Yeong-sook (2002). The questionnaire was composed of 11 questions on general characteristics, 35 on job satisfaction, and 4 on turnover intention, so a total of 50 questions. The reliability of the questionnaire was Cronbach's ${\alpha}=0.922$ for job satisfaction and Cronbach's ${\alpha}=0.854$ for turnover intention. Using SPSS 14.0, we obtained frequencies, percentages, means, and standard deviations, and performed independent two-sample t-test, one-way ANOVA, and Pearson correlation analysis, and Cronbach's ${\alpha}$. Results : 1) The mean score of the 119 emergency medical technicians' job satisfaction was 2.71, and that of their turnover intention was 2.64. By area of job satisfaction, the mean score was 3.44 for the area of job itself, 2.92 for the interaction area, 2.67 for the organizational demand area, 2.64 for the autonomy area, 2.14 for the wage area, and 1.91 for the working condition area, showing that emergency medical technicians were generally satisfied with their job itself but not with their working condition. 2) As to difference according to the 119 emergency medical technicians' general characteristics, statistically significant difference was observed in job satisfaction according to license type (F = 4.729, p < .010), and in turnover intention according to position (F = 3.768, p < .025). 3) The 119 emergency medical technicians' job satisfaction and turnover intention was in a negative correlation with each other (r = -.44, p < .000) in general, and by the sub-areas of job satisfaction, the correlation with turnover intention was high in order of the autonomy area (r = -.42, p = .000), interaction area (r = -.42, p = .000), job itself (r = -.35, p < .000), organizational demand area (r = -.30, p = .000), wage area (r = -.23, p = .000), and working condition area (r = -.21, p = .008). Conclusion : The 119 emergency medical technicians' job satisfaction showed a negative correlation with their turnover intention. This suggests that turnover intention can be reduced by improving job satisfaction. Furthermore, 119 emergency medical technicians' job satisfaction was high with the job itself, showing their high pride in their job, but was low with working condition and wage. Thus, it is necessary to enhance their job satisfaction by improving the 24-hour work system through supplementing manpower, compensating for overtime works, adjusting work hours per week, etc. These results are expected to be useful in making human resource management plans to lower turnover intention by enhancing 119 emergency medical technicians' job satisfaction.