Investigation of Factors That May Affect the Commitment of Healthcare Professionals to Their Works During the COVID-19 Pandemic Period

ABSTRACT

The environment of uncertainty created by the COVID-19 pandemic period has caused difficulties especially for healthcare professionals in their work activities. The purpose of this research is to find out which variables might affect the commitment of healthcare professionals to their works during this COVID- I 9 period. Based on the data announced by the Ministry of Health during the pandemic in the first quarter of 2021, it was decided to conduct a research on doctors, nurses, caregivers, and medical secretaries working in hospitals in the cities of the Eastern Black Sea Region of Turkey which generally show high risk. In the developed research model, satisfactory conditions (SC), emotional commitment to change (ECC), and psychological ownership (PO) as variables that may directly or indirectly affect the commitment of healthcare professionals to their works (CW) were used. The Smart PLS program was used in the analysis of the research model and hypothesis. It was seen that the ECC of healthcare professionals has a positive and significant (.694;p<.000) effect on SC. It was understood that the PO of healthcare professionals has positive and significant effects on their CW (.394;p < .000). It was also observed that the presence of SC has positive and significant effects on the PO of the healthcare professionals in the current situation (.796;p < .000). It was observed that only the effect of ECC of healthcare professionals on their CW is insignificant (.097;p > .086). Looking at the indirect (intermediary) effects obtained as a result of the research, it was seen that all of the hypotheses consist of positive coefficients. This situation reveals that the mediating variables have complementary effects on the obtained results.