job satisfaction and its influential factors

background: this study aimed at determining the job satisfaction level of the staff in shahroud university of medical sciences (sums), northern iran, and its influential factors. methods: in this descriptive study, conducted in 2008, the participants were 384 workers in sums selected through simple random sampling procedure. the participants received a 33-item questionnaire in a likert format (8 general items and 25 items related to job satisfaction facets). the collected data in form of frequencies and percentages were analyzed with spss software. results: 53.4% of interviewees were female and more than 60% had associate or higher degrees. 42.6% had less than 10 yr and 30.9% had 20 to 30 yr of job experience, respectively. the mean of the overall satisfaction was 13.02 out of 20. regarding the facets of job satisfaction, work, coworkers, supervisor, and pro­motion had the highest means, respectively. pearson and spearman correla­tion coefficients showed a significant relationship between overall satisfaction and the facets ( p = 0.001). analysis of variance also showed significant difference in overall satisfaction based on organizational units; however, no significant rela­tionship was observed between overall satisfaction and gender, degree, age, job experience and type of employment. conclusion: improvement of promotion process, training and qualifying manag­ers, observing meritocracy principles in appointments, using  cooperative man­agement, creating convivial and friendly atmosphere and improving work envi­ronment conditions, have brought about an increase in overall satisfaction of em­ployees in sums.