Counterintuitive consequences of COVID-19 on healthcare workers: A meta-analysis of the relationship between work engagement and job satisfaction

Abstract

BackgroundStudies conducted in the health sector have determined a positive relationship between job satisfaction and work engagement. However, this paper reveals that this relationship turns into a negative or non-significant relationship during the COVID-19 pandemic. We explore the reasons for inconsistency in research findings in this critical period through a meta-analysis.MethodsThis study was conducted according to the PRISMA guidelines and PICO framework. Online databases including Web of Science, Scopus, PubMed, ProQuest, Google Scholar, and additional records from other databases were searched without any time limitation, and all studies published in English that reported the correlation between work engagement and job satisfaction were included in the analysis. In total, 36 individual correlation coefficients were synthesized. R statistical language was used to analyze the data.ResultA total of 36 studies with a sample size of 16,087 were synthesized. The overall effect size was found as r = 0.57 (95% CI [0.50–0.64]). While the moderating effect of national culture was not statistically significant, presence of COVID-19 as the significant moderator explained 37.08% of effect size heterogeneity. Such that the presence of COVID-19 has transformed the positive relationship between work engagement and job satisfaction into a negative but statistically non-significant relationship.ConclusionThis study empirically challenges the existing assumptions about the positive link between work engagement and job satisfaction. The results of the research can be a guide for managers and policymakers. Specifically, based on these results, different mechanisms can be put in place to support work engagement and, in turn, job satisfaction in the COVID-19 process.

How do compulsory citizenship behaviors affect moral disengagement in organizations? Significance of anger toward the organization during the COVID-19 pandemic

“…In the long run, morally disengaged employees can damage co-workers' productivity, threaten the organization's well-being, lead to the breach of safety behaviors in the workplace, and even cause patient violence (Leidner et al, 2010;Caprara et al, 2014). Since negative behaviors generally undermine the goals and interests of an organization, it is critical to creating an organizational environment that will not allow these behaviors (Yildiz et al, 2022b). Additionally, the responsible and accountable leadership which does not coerce nurses to display CCBs (Podsakoff et al, 1990;Kim, 2014;Purwanto et al, 2021) but empowers and develops the nursing profession with adequate resources, could prove crucial in combatting the precarity experienced during the COVID-19 pandemic by this group of workers.…”

“…COVID-19 has caused excessive workloads, especially for healthcare professionals, compared to other occupational groups (Cheong et al, 2022). A meta-analytic study conducted on 36 healthcare workers recently found positive relationships (work engagement-job satisfaction) in all studies before COVID-19 turned negative during the COVID-19 process (Yildiz et al, 2022b). Söğütlü et al (2021) also found that COVID-19 has caused an increase in anger, anxiety, insomnia, severity, and emotion regulation difficulty in healthcare workers.…”

“…Extra-contractual work behaviors are imposed by organizations or management and are defined as compulsory citizenship behaviors (CCBs). Previous research indicates that nurses have found it increasingly hard to handle CCBs in extreme conditions such as the COVID-19 pandemic (Boztilki et al, 2021;Yildiz et al, 2022b).…”

“…The COVID-19 pandemic has rendered much conventional wisdom about healthcare workers' workload Boztilki et al, 2021), professionalism (Cici and Yilmazel, 2021), job satisfaction (Said and El-Shafei, 2021), work engagement (Giménez-Espert et al, 2020), motivation (Sperling, 2021), and psychological resilience questionable (Bozdağ and Ergün, 2021). For example, a recent meta-analytic study found that the relationship between work engagement and job satisfaction, which was positively and highly correlated before COVID-19, turned negative during the COVID-19 process (Yildiz et al, 2022b). Another study revealed that health workers, especially nurses, experienced a moral injury during the COVID-19 process (Hossain and Clatty, 2021).…”

Engaging physicians and nurses in balanced scorecard evaluation—An implication at Palestinian hospitals and recommendations for policy makers

“…Globally, the involvement of physicians and nurses in healthcare is considered an essential strategy since they are mostly known as frontline health care personnel ( 55 – 57 ). The engagement of HCWs results in enhancements to HCWs' wellbeing ( 55 ), levels of perceived patient care quality ( 55 ), patient outcomes ( 56 ), data quality ( 53 ), efficiency ( 53 ), innovation ( 53 ), HCWs satisfaction ( 53 , 55 , 58 ), patient satisfaction ( 53 ), performance ( 53 ), and decreased levels of unscheduled time off work ( 55 ). However, research indicates that the nursing voice is often overlooked ( 57 ).…”