Exploring the effect of perceived organizational support and resilience on Chinese pharmacists' engagement in stressful and competitive pharmaceutical work at hospitals

Abstract

BackgroundCurrently, pharmacists occupy a non-mainstream position in China's healthcare system, and there has been little research concerning the interaction among pharmacists' psychological status, work engagement, and other aspects of the healthcare system and relationship with their work. Our study examined the basic situation of Chinese pharmacists and investigated the relationship among pharmacists' perceived organizational support, resilience, and engagement when working in a competitive environment. ObjectiveTo investigate the awareness of perceived organizational support among pharmacists at Chinese hospitals, analyze the correlation between perceived organizational support and short-term resilience and work engagement scale scores after frustration, and examine the effect of various factors on pharmacists' work engagement in a stressful and competitive work environment. MethodAn electronic questionnaire survey was made available to 300 pharmacists at Chinese hospitals, and these pharmacists were engaged in intensely competitive work within their respective hospitals. The questionnaire survey employed the Utrecht Work Engagement Scale (UWES), Brief Resilience Scale (BRS), and Perceived Organizational Support Scale (POS). IBM SPSS Statistics Version 19.0 was used to analyze the collected data. ResultsA total of 295 of the 300 questionnaires were recovered, for a valid questionnaire rate of 98.33% (n = 295). The 3 scales used in this study where scored on 5-point Likert scales; the BRS-6 scale assessed resilience, and a mean value of 3.43 points was obtained; the UWES-9 scale assessed employee engagement, and a mean value of 3.63 points was obtained; and the POS-8 scale assessed perceived organizational support, and a mean value of 3.35 points was obtained. These results indicated that the pharmacists had above average perceived organizational support, short-term resilience, and work engagement. We found that the BRS had a Pearson correlation of 0.553 with the UWES and that the POS had a Pearson correlation of 0.663 (P＜0.01) with the UWES, revealing that there was a significant correlation between the pharmacists' perceived organizational support, short-term resilience, and engagement. ConclusionsThis study found that pharmacists possessing relatively strong short-term resilience and receiving extensive perceived support from their organizations are able to more effectively engage with their everyday work, a result that indicated that the perception of receiving organizational support and the possession of short-term resilience have a significant connection with employees' work engagement.