INVESTIGATING THE PSYCHOLOGICAL WELL-BEING AND ALTRUISM IN EDUCATION AND HEALTH WORKERS

EĞİTİM VE SAĞLIK ÇALIŞANLARINDA PSİKOLOJİK İYİ OLUŞ VE ÖZGECİLİĞİN İNCELENMESİ

Abstract

This research aims to investigate the relationship between psychological well-being and altruism levels of workers in education and health areas. The study also aims to reveal the differences between psychological well-being and altruism levels of education and health workers in terms of some variables (occupational field, perceived professional job satisfaction level and perceived professional spiritual satisfaction level).The study's universe constitute the employees of health care (physician, nurse, physiotherapist, health officer) and education (teacher, psychologist, social worker, special education specialist) working in Erzincan province center in 2015. The sample of the study was composed of totally 242 health and education workers, 122 of them are girls (50.4%) and 120 of them are males (49.6%), which their ages range from 24-56 (X̅ =33,49, Ss= 8,96). Psychological Well-being Scale, Altruism Scale and Personal Information Form were used in the study. According to the results of the research; It has been found that there is a high correlation in the positive direction between psychological well-being and altruism scores of education and health workers. It was also found that there was no significant difference between psychological well-being and altruism scores of education and health workers. Employees with high levels of perceived professional job satisfaction were found to have significantly higher levels of psychological well-being than other employees. Finally, it was found that psychological well-being and altruism scores of education and health workers with higher level of perceived professional spiritual satisfaction were significantly higher than the other levels.Well-being is an important concept in positive psychology. In one respect, it can be defined as equivalent to happiness and different concepts of well-being (such as subjective, objective, psychological wellbeing) can express different meanings. Historically, the concepts of happiness and well-being are seen as two different dimensions as 'hedonic' and 'eudaimonic' (psychological functionality) (Grenville-Cleave, 2012). In the area, altruism is generally described as "behavior that is considered to be opposite to egoism, selfishness and individualism, taking into account the interests and profits of others" (Marshall, 1999). In psychology literature, altruism is expressed in the way of thinking of the interests and well-being of others, without expecting an external prize, without thinking of oneself and even sometimes paying a personal price (Budak, 2003). It is both true that altruistic behavior provides wellbeing; and the people with high well-being have a pattern of altruistic behavior among their characteristics (Kasser ve diğ. , 2004; Mellor ve diğ. , 2008; Pessi, 2011; Sheldon ve Lyubomirsky, 2004; Steger, Kashdan, ve Oishi, 2008; Weinstein ve Ryan, 2010). In other words, it is pointed out that there may be a relationship between altruism and well-being (Mutafçılar, 2008, Onatır, 2008, Schwartz et al., 2009, Topuz, 2013, Ümmet, 2012, Yıldırım and Topcuoğlu, 2016). For these reasons, it is considered to be necessary to examine what the effects of altruism on well-being and how it affects well-being. It is observed that the reserches donein this regard has usually focused on university students, education and health workers who are thought to be in direct contact with people have not been sufficiently investigated. It can be said that the study of altruism and well-being on these two important occupational field workers will fill an important gap in the literature. Therefore, the research is important with this feature. Aim of The Investigation The main purpose of the study is to examine the relationship between psychological well-being and altruism levels of education and health workers. The study also aims to reveal the differences between psychological well-being and altruism levels in terms of some variables (occupational field, perceived professional financial satisfaction level and perceived professinal spiritual satisfaction level) of education and health workers. For this purpose, the questions asked in the survey are as follows;  Is there a relationship between psychological well-being and altruism levels of education and health workers?  Is there a difference between psychological well-being and altruism scores of education and health workers in terms of occupation (education and health)?  Is there a difference between psychological well-being and altruism scores of education and health workers in terms of perceived levels of professional financial satisfaction and spiritual satisfaction? Method The sample of the research is composed of 242 professors working in the field of education and health in Erzincan province center and selected by appropriate sampling method. The ages of the professionals who make up the sample group ranged from 18 to 32 (X ̅= 21,34.42 Ss = 2.04). 122 of these professionals are girls (50.4%), 120 of them are male (49.6%). These professionals who work in the field of health consist of 30 doctors (12.4%), 28 nurses (11.6%), 6 caregivers (2.5%), 15 health officers (6.2%) and 6 physiotherapist (2.5%). Three measurement tools were used to obtain the research data. These measures were the Personal Information Form prepared by the researcher, the Psychological Well-Being Scale (Ryff, 1989), and the Personalization Scale developed by London and Bower (2016) and adapted to Turkish by Akbaba (1994). In the analysis of the data, statistical techniques such as percent, frequency, correlation and simple linear regression analysis were used. Results and Discussion According to the first finding from the study, it was found that there is a high correlation between psychological well-being and altruism scores of education and health workers on the positive side. This result may be due to the fact that the altruistic behavior we have described as unrequited, unprofitable and charitable

Özet

Bu araştırma eğitim ve sağlık çalışanlarının psikolojik iyi oluş ile özgecilik düzeyleri arasındaki ilişkiyi incelemeyi amaçlamaktadır. Çalışma ayrıca eğitim ve sağlık çalışanlarının bazı değişkenler (meslek alanı, algılanan mesleki maddi tatmin düzeyi ve algılanan mesleki manevi tatmin düzeyi) açısından psikolojik iyi oluş ve özgecilik düzeyleri arasındaki farklılaşmayı ortaya koymayı amaçlamaktadır. Araştırmanın çalışma evrenini Erzincan il merkezinde 2015 yılı içerisinde çalışmakta olan sağlık (doktor, hemşire, fizik tedavi uzmanı, sağlık görevlisi) ve eğitim (öğretmen, psikolog, sosyal hizmet uzmanı, özel eğitim uzmanı) çalışanları oluşturmaktadır. Araştırmanın çalışma örneklemini ise yaşları 24-56 arasında değişen (X =33,49, Ss= 8,96) 122'si kız (% 50.4), 120'si erkek (% 49.6), toplam 242 sağlık ve eğitim çalışanı oluşturmaktadır. Araştırmada Psikolojik İyi Oluş Ölçeği, Özgecilik Ölçeği ve Kişisel Bilgi Formu kullanılmıştır. Araştırma sonuçlarına göre; Eğitim ve sağlık çalışanlarının psikolojik iyi oluş ile özgecilik puanları arasında pozitif yönde yüksek bir ilişki olduğu tespit edilmiştir. Ayrıca eğitim ve sağlık çalışanlarının psikolojik iyi oluş ve özgecilik puanları arasında anlamlı bir farklılaşmanın olmadığı bulgulanmıştır. Algılanan mesleki maddi tatmin düzeyi yüksek olan çalışanların psikolojik iyi oluş puanlarının, diğer çalışanlardan anlamlı düzeyde daha yüksek olduğu görülmüştür. Son olarak algılanan mesleki manevi tatmin düzeyi yüksek olan eğitim ve sağlık çalışanlarının psikolojik iyi oluş ve özgecilik puanlarının anlamlı düzeyde diğer düzeylerden daha yüksek olduğu bulgulanmıştır