Study Design
This study was a cross-sectional study using a web-based questionnaire with Google Form (Google LLC). The subjects of this study were pharmacists and dietitians working at pharmacy branches with dietitians in two pharmacy chains. One of the two chain pharmacies has stores throughout Japan, and the other is based in the Kansai region. The recruitment of collaborators was not limited to the region of the stores. In the web questionnaire, the purpose of the study, protection of personal information, and the fact that responses were voluntary were stated on the first page, and responses could be provided only if the respondents agreed to cooperate. The response period was from January to March 2021, and, e-mails were sent to participants once during the response period reminding them to be sure to submit their responses.
Definition of terms
Job Satisfaction
There have been many definitions and explanations of job satisfaction in the past. Locke's definition of "a pleasurable or positive emotional state that is related to the work that the individual performs "14) is one of the most important. In this study, we will basically follow this definition in our discussion.
Expertise
"Expertise" is a word that has many meanings and is in flux. Goldman proposes that:
S is an expert in domain D if and only if S has the capacity to help others (especially laypersons) solve a variety of problems in D or execute an assortment of tasks in D which the latter would not be able to solve or execute on their own. S can provide such help by imparting to the layperson (or other client) his/her distinctive knowledge or skills.15)
We think that this interpretation has a high affinity with the medical profession. In this paper, we will use the term "expertise" in accordance with this definition.
Questionnaire
To measure the attitudes about work of dietitians and pharmacists working in pharmacies, we used a questionnaire that was developed for this study. In developing the questionnaire, we used as our theoretical basis the idea that the most fundamental trend in work values is an increasing orientation toward internal values inherent in the work itself, such as enjoyment working with "colleagues" and the exercise of "professionalism,"16) and reports that job satisfaction in dietitians is related to the degree to which they are able to exercise professionalism.10) In this study, professionalism was defined as the degree to which a person can demonstrate expertise, according to Goldman’s definition. In the present study, demonstration of expertise refers to work performed by pharmacists that utilizes their pharmacological knowledge, and work performed by dieticians that utilizes their nutritional knowledge. A team of researchers, physicians, and pharmacists with experience in questionnaire development was formed and asked to confirm the validity of the content. In the end, a seven-item questionnaire was developed, with questions such as "very much agree," "agree," "can’t say either way," "disagree," and "completely disagree.”
Statistical analysis
For the analysis, we scored the responses to the questionnaire as follows: 5 points for "very much agree," 4 points for "agree," 3 points for "can’t say either way," 2 points for "disagree," and 1 point for "completely disagree.” The ceiling effect and floor effect were confirmed from the distribution of responses to each item. To confirm the validity of the questionnaire, an exploratory factor analysis was conducted. Kaiser-Meyer-Olkin's sample validity test and Bartlett's sphericity test were used to measure sample validity. The principal factor method was used for factor extraction, and the obtained matrices were rotated using the Oblimin method with Kaiser's normalization. The Kaiser Guttman criterion was used to determine the number of factors. A factor loading of 0.35 was used as the cutoff value. The reliability of the questionnaire was verified by calculating the Cronbach alpha coefficient.
Comparison of scores between pharmacists and dietitians was done by unpaired t test. IBM SPSS Statistics 27 (IBM Tokyo) was used for all analyses.