Interpersonal relations and nurses' job satisfaction through knowledge and usage of relational skills

Background/rationale: Many interpersonal labor disputes stem from the lack of communication skills and the relational problems in the interactions between health professionals. Aims/methods: A qualitative study was conducted in a Spanish hospital in order to get to know how the communicative interaction between hospital nurses is like in relation to the nurses' interpersonal interaction and communication skills developed in their working relationships. Twenty-one hospital nurses between 29 and 55 years old, working in different wards, were interviewed. Open-ended interview discourses were transcribed verbatim and analyzed using qualitative content analysis. Results: The following four key themes were analyzed: communication and sender; communication and awareness of who has the problem; non-verbal communication; communication and recipient. Conclusion: The results of this study highlight the need to broaden nurses' relational–communication skills in order to increase job satisfaction.

Exploring the relationship between educational mismatch, earnings and job satisfaction in the tourism industry

This article analyses the interrelationship between educational mismatch, wages and job satisfaction in the Spanish tourism sector in the first years of the global economic crisis. It is shown that there is a much higher incidence of over-education among workers in the Spanish tourism sector than in the rest of the economy despite this sector recording lower educational levels. This study estimates two models to analyse the influence of the educational mismatch on wages and job satisfaction for workers in the tourism industry and for the Spanish economy as a whole. The first model shows that in the tourism sector, the wage penalty associated with over-education is approximately 10%. The second reveals that in the tourism sector the levels of satisfaction of over-educated workers are considerably lower than those corresponding to workers well assigned. With respect to the differences between tourism and the overall economy in both aspects, the wage penalty is substantially lower in the case of tourism industries and the effect of over-education on job satisfaction is very similar to that of the economy as a whole in a context where both wages and the private returns to education are considerably lower in the tourism sector.