A Structural Equation Modeling of the Relationship Between Occupational Stress and Job Performance in Health Care Workers

Healthcare workers (HCWs) suffer from occupational stress. This stress has adverse effects on individual and organization. This factor can be impose irreparable damage to the health care organizations and ultimately reduce job performance. The aim of this study was to investigate the effect of occupational stress on the performance of HCWs. This descriptive-analytical study was conducted in 2017, by-census on 400 health-care workers of one of the public hospitals in Gorgan, Iran. Data was collected using Osipow’s Occupational Stress Questionnaire and Paterson’s Job Performance Questionnaire. Descriptive, analytical statistics and Structural Equation Modeling (SEM) was analyzed by SPSS v. 22 and LISREL 8.72. The highest and lowest effect of stressful factors on job performance were related to physical environment (β=0.89, p<0.001) and the role insufficiency (β=0.43, p<0.001) respectively. The overall dimensions of occupational stress explained 73% of changes in the variance of job performance of HCWs (R-squared=0.73). One of the important interventions can be focusing on the improvement of the physical conditions of the workplace and maintaining this at standard levels.