Under the COVID-19 epidemic situation, the anxiety of medical workers is closely related to the increase of working stress.
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Low sense of control and low psychological capital are important risk factors for anxiety of medical workers due to working stress.
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By enhancing the sense of control and psychological capital of medical workers, it is helpful to alleviate their anxiety and maintain their mental health.
Abstract
Background
The COVID-19 pandemic has brought a lot of working stress to medical workers and has a certain impact on their mental health. Working stress is closely related to the increase in anxiety, but few studies have explored whether their relationship will be affected by positive psychological factors in the special situation.
Methods
798 medical workers were investigated online after the outbreak of the COVID-19 (10 February to 1 March 2020) in China. The relevant questionnaires were used to evaluate working stress, anxiety, sense of control, and psychological capital. The moderated mediation model test was performed using the SPSS software and PROCESS macro program.
Results
Working stress could directly affect anxiety, and indirectly affect anxiety through sense of control. In addition, psychological capital moderated the direct effect of working stress on anxiety, which is more effective at high level of psychological capital. Psychological capital also moderated the second half of the indirect effect of working stress on anxiety, at low level of psychological capital, sense of control was more effective in predicting anxiety.
Limitations
All the data in this study was collected through online questionnaire. The anxiety response measured in this study cannot be specific to the viral epidemic.
Conclusions
Under the COVID-19 epidemic situation, for medical workers, low sense of control and low level of psychological capital may be important risk factors of anxiety caused by working stress. Thus, strengthening the sense of control and psychological capital of medical workers would be helpful to reduce their anxiety and maintain their mental health.
