Leadership behaviour, job satisfaction and the professional identity of medical laboratory staff in Saudi Arabia: An exploratory study

The medical laboratory profession is a highly demanding discipline featuring complex and multi-faceted areas. Its role is to assist healthcare professionals with the diagnosis and treatment of patients and to help control the spread of disease. This study aims to explore the professional identities and job satisfaction of medical laboratory staff (MLS) in two settings in Saudi Arabia (SA) together with the leadership behaviour of their medical laboratory leaders. There is a dearth of studies which have been conducted on MLS in SA, whilst professional identity has yet to be examined. A mixed method study, employing a sequential design was implemented to answer the study’s questions, this employed a range of data collection approaches and took place in two hospitals in SA. The design enabled the researcher to collect various data through questionnaires, in-depth interviews, focus groups, and non-participant observations. Three areas were explored and described: the status of the professional identity and job satisfaction of MLS and the leadership behaviour of medical personnel laboratory directors. In phase one, 99 MLS (response rate 66%) responded to the questionnaires exploring professional identity and job satisfaction, as well as the leadership behaviour of medical laboratory directors. The first phase of the quantitative data was analysed using SPSS software, with descriptive analysis also used. In phase two, in-depth interviews were conducted with purposive sampling of MLS (n=7), supervisors (n=8) and leaders (n=2). Two focus groups were conducted in both settings, and these involved 10 MLS in total. Observational data were also collected, this totalled 96 hours within the work environments of MLS. Interview data, focus groups and observations then all underwent thematic analysis. Phase one demonstrated that MLS scored themselves as average for professional identity and job satisfaction whereas the leadership behaviour scores for the two laboratories were dissimilar. The information in the qualitative findings generally agreed with, and helped to explain, the outcomes of the quantitative data. The phase two qualitative findings identified three main themes for each area. Professional identity themes included the belief in the job’s importance, the need for professional recognition alongside a current lack of role clarity and feeling valued. Job satisfaction themes included job factors, disadvantages of an MLS career and supervisory style and workplace environment. Leadership behaviour themes included effective leadership, as well as the impact of Ineffective leadership and leadership challenges on medical laboratories services such as culture, communication and quality. Generally, in SA the medical laboratory specialty would benefit from further promotion to improve its identity, and the MLS require additional development and training to satisfy their needs. Leadership qualities and skills presented were various and required the development of a culturally competent development programme. As a consequence of these findings, a framework based on the Healthcare Science in NHS Wales programme has been proposed. This was modified to suit the context of SA and would run alongside the Vision 2030 campaign in SA. This is built on three areas of priority; workforce, culture and service