Impact Of Fear Of COVID-19 On Organizational Citizenship Behavior (OCB) And Job Performance With Mediating Role Of Psychological Distress

Abstract

Background: The fear and terror of epidemic emerge as a highly complex issue that affects not only the society as a whole but also come out to be a huge medical issue. It results extremity in stress and anxiety which continually evolving uncontrollably when comparing to the everyday experienced stress (Main et al., 2011). Generally the people are more prone to experience distress because of stressful events of their life, specifically the women (Kessler & McLeod, 1984), thus leads towards work interferences and disturbance which eventually influence their work performance (Bhagat, 1983). Therefore the work related factors of employees (Bacharach et al., 1990), personal factors (Adams et al., 1996), environmental and situational factors (Wang et al., 2020) steps towards various forms of psychological distress and physical health issue (Enshassi et al., 2016; Johari & Omar, 2019). Thus the current pandemic of COVID-19 has not only been influencing the people's life physically (illness, health issues, hospitalization) but it also targeted them financially (financial insecurity, redundancy) (McKibbin & Fernando, 2021) as well as psychologically (such as stigmatization of pandemic, anxiety, depression, stress, loneliness etc.) (Mamun & Griffiths, 2020; Pappa et al., 2020; Shin & Liberzon, 2010). Consequently, the workplace environment of healthcare units for the frontline healthcare providers is remarkably influenced and giving medical and non-medical services will slushily be difficult because of stress, depression incertitude and stigmatization. Objective: The given study was aimed at to evaluate direct and indirect impact of fear of COVID-19 pandemic on organizational citizenship behavior and job performance with mediating role of psychological distress Method: Study was cross-sectional and convenience sampling technique was used to collect data (n=216), regardless of their gender, via google forms and questionnaires, from healthcare professionals of twin cities; Rawalpindi and Islamabad. Statistical Analysis was performed on data by using IBM SPSS 23. Inferential Statistics including correlation and regression via Preacher & Hayes method was applied on collected data to find out relationship between study variables. P-value ≤ 0.05 was considered statistically significant. Statistical analysis has revealed significant results Results: Correlation analysis and regression analysis has shown significant association of CVID-19 fear with psychological distress and psychological distress with OCB and job performance. Psychological distress was fully mediating the relationship of COVID-19 fear with OCB and job performance. Out of four hypotheses, two were accepted. Results of this study cannot be generalized on whole population of Pakistan as study was only limited to the two cities of Punjab, and sample size was small. Future studies may explore the ways to enhance job performance and OCB for the progress of healthcare organizations. Conclusion: Emphasis should be on the effective and efficient management and implementation of SOPs and policies pandemic prevention and consequences. This could be helpful in minimizing psychological distress and maximizing OCB and job performance as it could be the stepping stone towards success of the healthcare organization. Study has justified the research gap of using process, interaction and environment factors of total quality management as precursors of patient's satisfaction and loyalty. Keywords: Fear of COVID-19, Psychological Distress, Organizational Citizenship Behavior, Job Performance.