ABSTRACT
AIM: The aim of this study was to examine the mediating role of work-family conflict and the moderating role of job autonomy on the association between risk perception of COVID-19 and job withdrawal among Chinese nurses during the initial disease outbreak. BACKGROUND: Nurses' job withdrawal can not only reduce the quality and efficiency of care but also give rise to turnover during the COVID-19 pandemic. Thus, it is essential to clarify how and when the risk perception of COVID-19 influences the job withdrawal behaviours of nurses and to provide guidelines for reducing nurses' job withdrawal. METHODS: A two-wave study was conducted among 287 Chinese nurses from 11 COVID-19-designated hospitals during the initial outbreak of the disease from March through April 2020. Data on the risk perception of COVID-19, job autonomy and work-family conflict were collected at time 1, and 1 month later, job withdrawal data were collected at time 2. Model 4 and Model 14 from SPSS macro PROCESS were used to test the mediating effect of work-family conflict and the moderating effect of job autonomy, respectively. RESULTS: Work-family conflict mediated 60.54% of the relationship between risk perception of COVID-19 and job withdrawal. Job autonomy positively moderated the relation between work-family conflict and job withdrawal (ß = 0.12, P < 0.01). CONCLUSION: Risk perception of COVID-19 influenced nurses' job withdrawal through work-family conflict. Job autonomy exaggerated the association between work-family conflict and job withdrawal. IMPLICATIONS FOR NURSING MANAGEMENT: Managers should provide more supportive resources to help nurses cope with the risk of COVID-19 to decrease work-family conflict and job withdrawal, and they should strengthen supervision over the work processes of nurses.