How Family-Work Conflict Influences Post-traumatic Growth Among Medical Workers: A Moderated Mediation Model

Abstract

Under the impact of COVID-19, the status and mechanisms of post-traumatic growth among medical workers facing challenges related to family-work conflict are of great concern. In view of the complex relationship between family-work conflict and post-traumatic growth, the present study sought to explore the specific relationships between family-work conflict and post-traumatic growth as well as the specific roles of positive psychological capital, perceived social support, and suppression. We recruited 1,347 participants. The results revealed that positive psychological capital and perceived social support played mediating roles, while suppression strategies moderated the mediating effect. Compared with the low suppression group, the negative impact of family-work conflict on positive psychological capital and perceived social support was reduced in the high suppression group. Thus, a higher level of suppression was more conducive to post-traumatic growth. The current study enriches and expands the findings of previous studies in theory and provides practical ways to promote post-traumatic growth in medical workers.

Prevalence and associated factors of depressive and anxiety symptoms among healthcare workers in the post-pandemic era of COVID-19 at a tertiary hospital in Shenzhen, China: A cross-sectional study

“…The finding might be explained by the fact that healthcare workers with different levels of resilience could moderate the effects of perceived stress on depression by adopting different coping styles ( 81 ). In the post-pandemic era, our study found that work-family conflict was still be positively associated with anxiety symptoms while job burnout was also found to be positively associated with depressive symptoms, anxiety symptoms and their co-occurrence among healthcare workers, which were also confirmed in other studies during the pandemic ( 41 , 42 , 82 – 84 ). Lv et al stated that healthcare workers with high levels of work-family conflict are particularly vulnerable to mental health problems ( 41 ).…”

Job satisfaction as a mediator between family-to-work conflict and satisfaction with family life: a dyadic analysis in dual-earner parents

“…While levels of work-to-family conflict have surged during the pandemic (Andrade & Petiz Lousã, 2021;Ghislieri et al, 2021) indicate that this conflict has been largely unaffected by lockdown measures, whereas family-to-work conflict has increased, with family responsibilities multiplying for those working from home (Andrade & Petiz Lousã, 2021). Studies on family-to-work conflict during the pandemic have negatively associated this conflict with post-traumatic growth (i.e., psychological changes after overcoming a crisis), directly and via a negative association with psychological capital and perceived social support (Lv et al, 2021); and with COVID-19 phobia (Karakose et al, 2021). During this period, women have reported more family-to-work conflict than men (Frank et al, 2021), which is consistent with the evidence that their home-and family-related responsibilities have increased during the pandemic more than for men (Jiménez-Figueroa et al, 2020;Orellana & Orellana, 2020;Schnettler et al, 2022a).…”

How empowering leadership influences medical workers' work–family conflict in the post-pandemic era: A moderated mediation model of leadership “black box”

“…To further test the moderated mediation effect, Process Model 4 and Amos 17.0 were used to apply the Bootstrap method (Hayes, 2013(Hayes, , 2017(Hayes, , 2018Hair et al, 2019). To verify the moderated mediation model, the mediating and moderating effects were integrated into the same analytical framework (Wen et al, 2006;Cui and Li, 2021;Lv et al, 2021).…”

“…In addition to the medical workers themselves, the negative effects of medical workers' leadership, work–family conflict, and mental health are worthy of research (Cheong et al, 2016 ; Chen et al, 2020b ; Kang et al, 2020 ; Vaziri et al, 2020 ; Xiang et al, 2020 ; Zhang W. R. et al, 2020 ; Zhu et al, 2020 ; López-Núez et al, 2021 ; Lv et al, 2021 ), in particular to mitigate the negative effects of the so-called leadership “black box,” and to study interventions to work–family conflicts (Luo et al, 2007 ; Jin et al, 2014 ), highlight the positive effects of leadership and reduce the negative effects of leadership (Lee et al, 2017 ; Lin and Luo, 2017 ; Hao et al, 2018 ; Wong and Giessner, 2018 ; Yin and Xing, 2018 ; Wang and Sun, 2019 ; Chen et al, 2020a ; Jiang and Xu, 2020 ; Song and Chen, 2021 ). Among the factors influencing work–family conflict, previous study has ignored the role of leadership behaviors (Li, 2018 ).…”

“…These workers are deeply affected by the cruelty of the pandemic and the tragic situation of many COVID-19 patients. The pandemic is potentially having an impact on their physical and mental health (Chen et al, 2020b ; Kang et al, 2020 ; Lai et al, 2020 ; Simione and Gnagnarella, 2020 ; Xiang et al, 2020 ; Zhang W. R. et al, 2020 ; Zhu et al, 2020 ), in turn affecting their work and family relations (Vaziri et al, 2020 ; López-Núez et al, 2021 ; Lv et al, 2021 ). Focusing on this special group of workers, this paper explored the impact of empowering leadership on employees' work–family conflicts and analyzed the mediating effect of role stress and the moderating effect of psychological detachment from the perspective of role theory and the stressor-detachment model.…”