FACTORS RELATING TO SATISFACTION AND MOTIVATION OF DISTRICT WELFARE COMMISSIONERS IN JAPAN.

摘要

Formal volunteering offers broad benefits to the community. Therefore, understanding the strategy for the recruitment and retention of volunteers has been considered as an important policy issue. In Japan, district welfare commissioners are important formal volunteers that deal with community care and support. However, there are few people that willingly undertake work as the commissioners. This study examined factors associated with the satisfaction and motivation to continue working of district welfare commissioners, with a focus on the roles of “psychosocial gains,” “role strain,” and “support from others”. Questionnaires were sent by mail to district welfare commissioners (N=1,936) living in Tokyo in 2012 (response rate: 69.5%). The results from structural equation modeling showed that those having high psychosocial gains such as feelings of fulfillment about their activities had a high level of satisfaction and motivation to continue working, whereas those feeling role conflicts (e.g. “I am assigned meaningless work.”) and role ambiguity (e.g. “I don’t know what to do.”) had a low level of satisfaction and motivation. Role overload was not significantly related to the level of satisfaction and motivation. Although support from municipal offices, community support centers and other sources did not have direct effects on satisfaction and motivation, consultation and information support from them had indirect effects mediated by an increase in psychosocial gains and a decrease in role conflicts and ambiguity. These results suggest the importance of managing psychosocial gains and role conflict/ambiguity and promoting backup support for the retention of district welfare commissioners.