Psychological flow and mental immunity as predictors of job performance for mental health care practitioners during COVID-19

PLoS One. 2024 Nov 1;19(11):e0311909. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0311909. eCollection 2024.

Abstract

Background: Numerous studies indicated that workers in the health sector suffer from work stress, hassles, and mental health problems associated with COVID-19, which negatively affect the completion of their job tasks. These studies pointed out the need to search for mechanisms that enable workers to cope with job stress effectively.

Objectives: This study investigated psychological flow, mental immunity, and job performance levels among the mental health workforce in Saudi Arabia. It also tried to reveal the psychological flow (PF) and mental immunity (MI) predictability of job performance (JP).

Method: A correlational survey design was employed. The study sample consisted of 120 mental health care practitioners (therapists, psychologists, counselors)who lived in Saudi Arabia. Sixty-four were men, 56 were women, and their ages ranged between 27 and 48 (36.32±6.43). The researchers developed three measurements of psychological flow, mental immunity, and job performance. After testing their validity and reliability, these measures were applied to the study participants.

Results: The results found median levels of psychological flow, mental immunity, and job performance among mental health care practitioners. Also, the results revealed that psychological flow and mental immunity were statistically significant predictors of job performance. The psychological flow variable contributed (38.70%) and mental immunity (54.80%) to the variance in job performance of mental health care practitioners.

Conclusion: The current study indicated that psychological flow and mental immunity significantly influenced the job performance of mental health care practitioners. These findings pointed out that human resource management in mental health care institutions in Saudi Arabia must search for procedures that achieve a state of flow and mental immunity for workers to make their jobs more meaningful. Also, these findings indicated the importance of planning interventions to enhance mental health care practitioners' psychological flow, mental immunity, and job performance to help them cope with work stress effectively and protect them from symptoms of burnout.

MeSH terms

  • Adaptation, Psychological
  • Adult
  • COVID-19* / epidemiology
  • COVID-19* / immunology
  • COVID-19* / psychology
  • Female
  • Health Personnel* / psychology
  • Humans
  • Male
  • Mental Health
  • Mental Health Services
  • Middle Aged
  • Occupational Stress / psychology
  • SARS-CoV-2
  • Saudi Arabia / epidemiology
  • Surveys and Questionnaires
  • Work Performance*

Grants and funding

This work was supported by Princess Nourah bint Abdulrahman University Project number (PNURSP2023R380). The funders had no role in the study design, data collection, analysis, the decision to publish, or the preparation of the manuscript.