Work-Family Conflict, Emotional Intelligence, and General Self-Efficacy Among Medical Practitioners During the COVID-19 Pandemic

Sadaf Zeb; Ahsan Akbar; Azeem Gul; Syed Arslan Haider; Petra Poulova; Fakhra Yasmin

doi:10.2147/PRBM.S333070

Work-Family Conflict, Emotional Intelligence, and General Self-Efficacy Among Medical Practitioners During the COVID-19 Pandemic

Psychol Res Behav Manag. 2021 Nov 15:14:1867-1876. doi: 10.2147/PRBM.S333070. eCollection 2021.

Authors

Sadaf Zeb¹, Ahsan Akbar^{2

3}, Azeem Gul⁴, Syed Arslan Haider⁵, Petra Poulova³, Fakhra Yasmin⁶

Affiliations

¹ Department of Professional Psychology, Bahria University, Islamabad, Pakistan.
² International Business School, Guangzhou City University of Technology, Guangzhou, 510080, People's Republic of China.
³ Department of Informatics and Quantitative Methods, Faculty of Informatics and Management, University of Hradec Kralove, Hradec Kralove, 500 03, Czech Republic.
⁴ Department of International Relations, National University of Modern Languages, Islamabad, 45320, Pakistan.
⁵ Department of Management, Sunway University, Selangor Darul Ehsan, 47500, Malaysia.
⁶ School of Education, South China Normal University, Guangzhou, 510631, People's Republic of China.

Abstract

Purpose: In Pakistan, medical professionals face multiple challenges comprising long, fixed working hours and workload overburdening, which leads to emotional fatigue. These conflicts in work-life scenarios, brought about by high work demands causing emotional exhaustion, can create a state of distress among the medical professionals. The present study investigates the association between work-family conflict (WFC), emotional intelligence (EI), and self-efficacy (SE) among medical practitioners during COVID-19 in Pakistan.

Patients and methods: The study sample included 140 medical professionals from Rawalpindi and Islamabad. Cross-section correlational research design was used, and information was gathered employing online surveys through a purposive sampling technique. The scales utilized were the WFC, EI, and SE Scale.

Results: The current study hypothesized a significant relationship between work-family conflict, general self-efficacy (GSE) and emotional intelligence among medical practitioners during COVID-19 in Pakistan. The results showed that those with more family-to-work conflict had less EI and GSE. Furthermore, findings uncovered that there is a significant positive relationship between EI and GSE.

Conclusion: The findings propose that it is important for medical professionals to have a high level of EI and GSE to navigate through the WFC more healthily. In future, awareness seminars could be arranged related to EI and its significance to stimulate the psychological well-being of medical professionals. Future studies could also consider other healthcare workers, including nurses and internees doing house jobs and other medical staff, as they are also exposed to several stresses due to the workload and family demands.

Keywords: emotional fatigue; medical professionals; purposive sampling; work–life balance.

Publication types

Retracted Publication

Grants and funding

The open access to this research is supported by the SPEV project 2021 at the Faculty of Informatics and Management, University of Hradec Kralove, Czech Republic.