Aim: To determine whether social support and psychological resiliency are significant mediators of the associations between risk perception and quality of working life in Chinese nurses working with infectious diseases.
Design: A cross-sectional study.
Methods: A cross-sectional survey of 879 nurses in infectious diseases department of specialty or general hospitals in China completed online questionnaires on the nurses' risk perception questionnaire, quality of working life, psychological resilience and the social support rating scale.
Results: Our study observed that risk perception directly negatively influences the quality of working life of infectious disease nurses, while psychological resilience and social support positively chain mediate this relationship.
Conclusion: Critical elements impacting the quality of working life of infectious disease nurses are risk perception, psychological resilience and social support. Managers may think about decreasing the level of risk perception and enhancing the quality of working life of infectious disease nurses by enhancing their psychological resilience and providing support.
Public contribution: The quality of working life of infectious disease nurses should be a priority for nursing management; it is critical to maintain their health and well-being, raise the quality of care and lower turnover. Managers should create resilience-building programmes and support tools to assist nurses properly perceive risks and adopt protective strategies to deal with them to improve the quality of working life for nurses.
Keywords: nurses in infectious disease department; psychological resilience; quality of working life; risk perception; social support.
© 2024 The Author(s). Nursing Open published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd.