Personal competencies are associated with successful job performance. Job satisfaction is directly related to nursing turnover, and is a critical indicator of their performance and quality of patient care. However, little is known about the relationship between personal competencies, social adaptation, and job adaptation on job satisfaction for nurses.

The purpose of this study was to explore the relationship between personal competencies, social adaptation, and job adaptation on job satisfaction for nurses.

This study was conducted with secondary data analysis.

We targeted nursing alumni in a large university in Taiwan.

The target population was nursing alumni, and the sample consisted of 280 from the Office of Student Affairs database.

Personal competencies, social adaptation, job adaptation, and job satisfaction were measured using a secondary data analysis. Relationships between the variables were analyzed to determine which variable explained the most variance in job satisfaction.

Of the 280 participants, participation of extracurricular activities was reported by 70.4%, and over 22.5% had a leadership role in extracurricular activities. The results demonstrated that nursing alumni with either extracurricular activities involvement or a leadership role had higher level of personal competencies and better job satisfaction. Further, these results showed the number of years in the extracurricular activities (r = 0.174, p = .003), the perceived level of personal competencies (r = 0.341, p = .000), social adaptation (r = 0.411, p = .000) and job adaptation (r = 0.575, p = .000) were positively and significantly correlated with job satisfaction. The job adaptation, the perceived level of personal competencies, and alumni who had a leadership role accounted for 37.1% of variance in job satisfaction.

Results of this study suggest that job adaptation, personal competencies, and having had a leadership role in extracurricular activities are important concepts to improving nurses' job satisfaction.