Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
. 2022;41(12):9109-9122.
doi: 10.1007/s12144-021-01381-8. Epub 2021 Jan 23.

Encountering Covid-19 and perceived stress and the role of a health climate among medical workers

Sammar Abbas  1 , Hadi Al-Abrrow  2 , Hasan Oudah Abdullah  3 , Alhamzah Alnoor  4 , Zeeshan Zaib Khattak  1 , Khai Wah Khaw  5
Affiliations

Encountering Covid-19 and perceived stress and the role of a health climate among medical workers

Sammar Abbas et al. Curr Psychol. 2022.

Abstract

Due to the outbreak of Covid-19 epidemic, work stress among health sector employees has risen too high. The study aims at determining the effect of the current coronavirus epidemic in the form of stress perceived among the medical workers in Pakistan and to discover the moderating role played by a healthy climate in offsetting it. The data was collected from 255 medical workers through a self-administered online questionnaire. Multiple Hierarchical Regression was used as a tool to test the hypotheses of the study. The results obtained indicate a correlation between the pandemic and the stress caused by it among the health workers, whereas, the role of a wholesome climate in the reduction of stress among them was found lacking. Sub-hypotheses indicate that the healthy environment provided by supervisors is effective in reducing the impact of workers' handling of the Covid-19 epidemic and perceived stress, while the healthy environment provided by hospitals in general or by workgroups fails to cause such positive change. This revelation necessitates the adoption of compulsory precautionary measures on the part of relevant authorities, because increase in stress caused by the pandemic can prove more lethal than the pandemic itself. The threat of the coronavirus pandemic has emerged as a massive socio-economic challenge for the global community, especially for the developing countries like Pakistan which faces serious socio-economic challenges in the current scenario. On account of the similarity of situations, the results obtained through this study can be safely generalized to other developing countries, particularly from the South Asian region.

Keywords: Covid-19; Health climate; Medical workers; Perceived stress.

PubMed Disclaimer

Conflict of interest statement

Conflict of InterestAll the authors of this paper declare existence of no mutual conflict of interests.

Figures

Fig. 1
Fig. 1
Model of study
See this image and copyright information in PMC

References

    1. Abid A, Shahzad H, Khan HA, Piryani S, Khan AR, Rabbani F. Perceived risk and distress related to COVID-19: Comparing healthcare versus non-healthcare Workers of Pakistan. medRxiv. 2020;8(1):1–32. - PMC - PubMed
    1. Al-Abrrow HAW. Transformational leadership and organizational performance in the public healthcare sector: The role of organizational learning and intellectual capital. Irish Journal of Management. 2014;33(1):27–47.
    1. AL-Abrrow H, Abdullah H, Atshan N. Effect of organizational integrity and leadership behaviour on organizational excellence: Mediator role of work engagement. International Journal of Organizational Analysis. 2019;27(4):972–985. doi: 10.1108/IJOA-08-2018-1518. - DOI
    1. AL-Abrrow, H., Alnoor, A., Ismail, E., Eneizan, B., & Makhamreh, H. Z. (2019b). Psychological contract and organizational misbehavior: Exploring the moderating and mediating effects of organizational health and psychological contract breach in Iraqi oil tanks company. Cogent Business & Management, 6(1), 1683123.
    1. AL-Abrrow, H., Al-Maatoq, M., Alharbi, R, K., Alnoor, A., Abdullah, H, O., Abbas, S., & Khattak, Z, Z. (2020). Understanding employees’ responses to the COVID-19 pandemic: The attractiveness of healthcare jobs. Global Business and Organizational Excellence, 40(2), 19–33.

LinkOut - more resources