A Cross Section Study to Assess Factor Affecting the Work Life Balance of the Female Healthcare Professionals in the Private Hospitals of Vadodara – India

Purpose of the Research: work life balance is an important phenomenon concerning a lot of working employees. Females form a major proportion of the workforce in the healthcare industry and the policies should focus on their well being for a stress free environment. There has been a vast amount of research carried out focussing on this topic. However, there has been limited research concerning the work life balance of female healthcare professionals working in hospitals. Therefore, this study aims to assess the factor affecting the work life balance of the female healthcare professionals working in hospitals of Vadodara district (India). Methodology: The data collection tool is a structured close ended questionnaire where in the respondents were asked to choose their option pertaining to various parameters of work life balance on a five point Likert scale. The collected from 335 female healthcare professionals working in seven private hospitals of Vadodara (India). The data collected were analyzed using SPSS version 23. The statistical test used was Kruskal-Wallis and Mann-Whitney test at 95% confidence level. Original Research Article Parveen et al.; JPRI, 33(59B): 753-758, 2021; Article no.JPRI.79655 754 Major Results: There were 87 female doctors and 248 nurses in the study. Among the 335 respondents, 210 female healthcare professionals had 3-4 family size having the highest frequency, 297 female’s respondents were married, and 38 were single. The study showed that there was no difference in the work life balance of the females with respect to the family size because of cooking, child study, and other individual female’s responsibilities. Because of their marital status, there is a statistically significant difference in the work life balance of female healthcare professional. Conclusions: For the employers the work life balance is an important human resource area of concern; hence, this study highlights an important issue to address for better satisfaction and content of the female healthcare professionals.

Major Results: There were 87 female doctors and 248 nurses in the study. Among the 335 respondents, 210 female healthcare professionals had 3-4 family size having the highest frequency, 297 female's respondents were married, and 38 were single. The study showed that there was no difference in the work life balance of the females with respect to the family size because of cooking, child study, and other individual female's responsibilities. Because of their marital status, there is a statistically significant difference in the work life balance of female healthcare professional. Conclusions: For the employers the work life balance is an important human resource area of concern; hence, this study highlights an important issue to address for better satisfaction and content of the female healthcare professionals.

INTRODUCTION
In this competitive world, it is essential for every healthcare sector to create a congenial atmosphere that can help the employees to balance their personal and professional roles. But due to increased working hours, the individuals are left with less time for themselves.The growth of higher education has improved job prospects for women and resulted in the move from stay-at-home mothers to thriving professional women. As a result, the personal and spiritual growth of an individual is also hindered. Due to intense competition in the world of business, the presence of working women has become increasingly visible. The increased economic conditions have necessitated both husband and wife to do job for having a normal life.
All though woman has achieved tremendous success in her career but still, her responsibility towards home has not decreased. She has to manage her household chores, look after her kids and so on. Now a days for women, both personal and office roles are demanding. As a result, such pressure affects her health thereby leading to absenteeism from office. Therefore, it becomes essential to help working women. At home, she has to deal with the demands of her families whereas in office she has to bear the brunt of office demands [1]. Working women including dual career responsibility require the availability of time at different points in different stages in their career to meet different personal and social needs. Resultantly, working women struggle to strike balance between working hours and personal obligations [2].
Work life balance helps in describing a balance between family life and working life. The term work life balance is given preference as it includes the experiences of working individual's and helps in exploring new ways of working and living for themselves. Managing a balance between family and work life is the biggest challenge for both working people and the healthcare sector. They will be able to give their best only when clinics and hospitals have work life balance policies for them. Policies and programs will help them in balancing their personal and professional schedules. This will ultimately give them the feeling of satisfaction in work life balance.
Particularly for nurses and female doctors, it has become more difficult to strike a balance between the two.In the present study, female healthcare professionals have more family conflicts which is contrary to the females working in industrial sector, who faces more if workplace conflicts [3].
Females form a major proportion of workforce in the healthcare industry and the policies should focus on their well being for a stress free environment. There has been a large amount of research carried out focussing on this topic. However, there has been limited research concerning the work life balance of female healthcare professionals working in hospitals. Therefore, this study aims to assess the factor affecting the work life balance of the female healthcare professionals working in hospitals of Vadodara district (India).

METHODOLOGY
The study design is Cross-Sectional in nature as the study aims to assess the factor affecting the work life balance of the female healthcare professionals in private hospitals. The study population is female nurses and doctors of Vadodara city from which the sample size of 335 is taken using the following formula: Where,Population size = N | Margin of error = e | z-score = zof error is 5% and confidence interval is 95% and hence corresponding z-score is 1.96. The value of p in the sample size calculation is 60.5%.The data from 335 samples were collected through primary mode of data collection using structured close ended questionnaire where in the respondents were asked to choose their option pertaining to various parameters of work life balance on a five-pointLikert scale.The respondents who are willingly wanted to participate in the study were included for data collection.
The data collected from 335 female healthcare professionals working in seven private hospital of Vadodara City. The questionnaire was designed with an aim to assess the factor affecting the work life balance. The following are the five points on rating scale: A pilot study was conducted to check for the validity and reliability of the data collection tool. The cronbach's alpha value was 0.91 indicating high internal consistency of the tool.The data collected from the female nurse and doctors working in private hospitals of Vadodara city (India) was tabulated and coded in MS Excel. The data was then analysed using SPSS version 23.The statistical test used was Kruskal-Wallis and Mann-Whitney test at 95% confidence level.

RESULTS
The analysis was done on 335 respondents of female healthcare professionals of seven hospitals of Vadodara (India). There were 87 female doctors and 248 nurses in the study.
The Table 1 shows that frequency of marital status, there are two categories of marital status i.e. single and married.
The Table 2 shows that among the 335 respondents, 210 female healthcare professionals had 3-4 family size having the highest frequency.
The Table 1 shows that among the 355 respondents, 210 female healthcare professionals had a family size of 3-4 members.
The table 3 shows that there is no difference accordance to the marital status on holding responsibilities like giving urgent attention on family issues, planning and preparing sweets for festivals, getting assistance for purchasing grocery/vegetables, etc. and nor in paying electricity/water/telephone bills while it is found that there is difference in few responsibilities like support in picking up & drop, equally concentrate in kids studies, washing works, cooking activities and cleanliness of the house.   [5] in her study it was found that there is significant relationship is there between marital status and work life balance. Anshu Thakur and Vishal Geete (2014) [6] shows that the women are facing difficulties in managing their professional and personal life at the same time. They are supposed to manage both the ends with efficiency and accuracy. They concluded women employees are mentally occupied about the office work devoting more time in office which affects their domestic responsibilities which affects their temperament. K Thriveni Kumari and Dr. V Rama Devi (2015) [3] concluded that problem is more for women employees because of the types of roles they play at home and the spill over of personal live over work life and viceversa. The current study also shows significant difference in female healthcare professionals according to the marital status.

CONCLUSION
There is big challenge for the working women's to make a balance between the professional life and the personal life. Working women are playing double role in their life but up to what extent they were able to handle and manage their double responsibilities become important. The work life balance is an important human resource area of concern for the employers; hence, this study highlights an important issue to address for better satisfaction and content of the female healthcare professionals.

CONSENT
As per international standard or university standard, patients' written consent has been collected and preserved by the author(s).

ETHICAL APPROVAL
As per international standard or university standard written ethical approval has been collected and preserved by the author(s).