How can employees break free from helplessness in critical work incidents?
International Journal of Stress Management
; : No Pagination Specified, 2022.
Article
in English
| APA PsycInfo | ID: covidwho-2271894
ABSTRACT
Critical incidents, defined as traumatic time-limited events, often happen unexpectedly, and have largely impacted employees in many ways. In this study, we apply the conservation of resources theory as our overarching framework to examine whether and when employees involved in a critical work incident would experience helplessness at work, which may consequently spill over into the life domain and negatively impact their well-being. Taking the COVID-19 as a typical example of critical incidents, we collected multiwave data from 765 Chinese doctors. The results showed that perceived COVID-19 event strength is positively related to doctors' helplessness at work, which further negatively impacts their presence of meaning in life. Besides, meaningful work exacerbates the effect of perceived COVID-19 event strength on doctors' helplessness, while social support and psychological detachment reduce the negative impact of helplessness on their presence of meaning in life. Our study calls attention to protection of the mental health and psychological well-being of employees faced with critical incidents at work and their psychological recovery, and sheds light on the effectiveness of social support and psychological detachment as resource replenishing mechanisms, while cautions against further emphasizing work meaningfulness to employees confronted with a highly novel, disruptive, and critical work event. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2022 APA, all rights reserved)
helplessness; meaning in life; meaningful work; social support; psychological detachment, *Helplessness, *Meaningfulness, *Social Support, *Well Being, *covid-19, Experiences (Events), Foreign Language Translation, Physicians, Work (Attitudes Toward), Professional Personnel Attitudes & Characteristics [3430], Human Adulthood (18 yrs & older), China
Full text:
Available
Collection:
Databases of international organizations
Database:
APA PsycInfo
Language:
English
Journal:
International Journal of Stress Management
Year:
2022
Document Type:
Article
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