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How stress affects presenteeism in public sectors: a dual path analysis of Chinese healthcare workers

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Abstract

Aim

Job stress is an important concept in current organizational behavior and relevant studies. We explored how two types of job stress impact on presenteeism from a dual-path.

Subject and methods

This cross-sectional study conducted a literature research and questionnaire survey to explore the influence of job stress on presenteeism among healthcare workers based on a dataset composed of 1516 valid samples from 12 hospitals across China. Structural equation modeling and mediation analysis in SPSS were used to test the roles played by public service motivation and health in the influence of job stress on presenteeism.

Results

In the final structural model equation, challenge stress had a significant positive impact on public service motivation (β = 0.08; P < 0.05) but a negative impact on health (β = −0.20; P < 0.01), and an insignificant negative effect on presenteeism (β = −0.00; P > 0.05). Hindrance stress was significantly negatively correlated with public service motivation (β = −0.20; P < 0.001) and health (β = −0.27; P < 0.001) and positively correlated with presenteeism (β = 0.09; P < 0.01). The mediating role of public service motivation was insignificant for challenge stress but significant for hindrance stress, while both paths were significant when mediated by health.

Conclusions

First, job stress has a significant influence on presenteeism. Second, different types of job stress have different effects on presenteeism and hindrance stress plays a more salient role. Third, health plays a significant mediating role compared with public service motivation. The government and health industry should pay attention to healthcare workers’ working status to improve the quality of healthcare service from the supply side.

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Availability of data and material

The datasets used and/or analyzed during the current study are available from the corresponding author on reasonable request.

Code availability

Not applicable.

Abbreviations

CS:

Challenge stress

HS:

Hindrance stress

PSM:

Public service motivation

SPSS:

Statistical product and service solutions

SEM:

Structural equation modeling

SE:

Standard error

RMSEA:

Root mean square error of approximation

GFI:

Goodness of fit index

CFI:

Comparative fit index

TLI:

Tucker-lewis index

NFI:

Normed fit index

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Acknowledgments

The authors thank the research assistants in the hospitals studied for their support in collecting data for the study.

Funding

This manuscript is supported by the National Science Funding of China (grant no. 71974011, 71804009, 71603018, 71972012, 91746116).

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Management and Economics, Beijing Institute of Technology, 5 Zhongguancun South Street, Beijing, 100081, China

    Jianwei Deng, Zhennan Wu, Mingxu Ma, Zixuan Zang & Tianan Yang

  2. Sustainable Development Research Institute for Economy and Society of Beijing, Beijing, China

    Jianwei Deng, Zhennan Wu, Mingxu Ma, Zixuan Zang & Tianan Yang

Authors
  1. Jianwei Deng
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  2. Zhennan Wu
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  3. Mingxu Ma
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  4. Zixuan Zang
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  5. Tianan Yang
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Contributions

J.D. and T.Y. conceived of and designed the study. T.Y., Z.W., M.M., Z.Z. and J.D. contributed to data collection, data management, statistical analysis, interpretation of the results, and revision of the manuscript. J.D. wrote the paper. All authors reviewed the paper, provided significant feedback, and approved the final manuscript. All authors have read and agreed to the published version of the manuscript.

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Tianan Yang.

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Competing interests

The authors declare that they have no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, or publication of this article.

Ethics approval and consent to participate

The cross-sectional studies involving human participants were reviewed and approved by the ethics review committee of the first affiliated hospital of Xiamen University and the consent of the research respondents. Informed and signed consent was received from each participant.

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Deng, J., Wu, Z., Ma, M. et al. How stress affects presenteeism in public sectors: a dual path analysis of Chinese healthcare workers. J Public Health (Berl.) 30, 1949–1958 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10389-021-01588-w

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10389-021-01588-w

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