The mediating effect of coping styles between emergency capacity and mental workload among clinical nurses: A cross-sectional study

Abstract

Aims: This study aimed to examine the relationship between emergency capacity, coping styles, and mental workload among nurses.

Background: Emergency capacity, coping styles, and mental workload are all variables associated with work. Identifying the relationship between these variables can facilitate administrators to implement tailored and effective intervention strategies to improve individual performance, quality of care, and medical safety.

Methods: A quantitative cross-sectional study was carried out to investigate 605 Chinese clinical nurses in seven tertiary hospitals by using personal information form, emergency capacity scale for nurses, simplified coping skill questionnaire, and the NASA-Task Load Index.

Results: Emergency capacity and mental workload were found at moderate levels. The multiple linear regression model suggested that spinsterhood, no children, high workload, always anxiety or nervousness, and lower monthly income were the influencing factors of mental workload. Positive coping style was positively correlated with emergency capacity and negatively correlated with mental workload. Negative coping style was negatively related to emergency capacity and positively related to mental workload. Additionally, coping styles played a partial mediating role in the relationship between emergency capacity and mental workload through constructing a structural equation model, but the effects of positive coping style and negative coping style are opposite.

Conclusion: Our results showed that coping styles played a mediating role in the relationship between emergency capacity and mental workload. Managers can alleviate the mental workload of nurses by cultivating positive coping styles and improving emergency capacity.

Implications for nursing and nursing policy: Mental workload of nurses deserves more attention in medical institutions. The results of our study provide evidence for improving employee health, promoting positive behaviors, and optimizing organizational management. Nursing managers should take feasible measures to fulfill nurses' needs for emergency capacity and coping strategies to alleviate nurses' mental workload, so as to stimulate their intrinsic motivation and positive organizational behavior.

Keywords: coping styles; emergency capacity; mediating effect; mental workload; nurses.