Mental Health and Work Attitudes among People Resuming Work during the COVID-19 Pandemic: A Cross-Sectional Study in China

Abstract

The unprecedented outbreak of the Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) caused an economic downturn and increased the unemployment rate in China. In this context, employees face health and social economic stressors. To assess their mental health (i.e., anxiety, depression, insomnia and somatization) and work attitudes (i.e., work engagement, job satisfaction and turnover intention) as well as the associated factors, we conducted a cross-sectional study among people who resumed work after the Spring Festival holiday during the COVID-19 pandemic. The results show that the prevalence of anxiety, depression, insomnia and somatization among these people was 12.7%, 13.5%, 20.7% and 6.6%, respectively. The major risk factor for mental health was worrying about unemployment, and the main protective factors were psychological strengths (i.e., resilience and optimism). Regarding work attitudes, the percentage of people who felt more satisfied with their job (43.8%) was larger than that of those who felt less satisfied (26.9%), while the percentage of people who thought about quitting their job more frequently (15.7%) was smaller than that of those who considered it less frequently (63.2%). However, work engagement was lower than usual. Similar to the factors associated with mental health, the major risk factor for work attitudes was also worrying about unemployment, and the main protective factors were resilience and optimism. In addition, the nature of the organization, job status, age, position and income changes were also related to these work attitudes. Our findings shed light on the need for organization administrators to be aware of the status of and factors associated with employees' mental health and work attitudes during the COVID-19 pandemic. Policies or interventions could be developed based on our findings.

Keywords: COVID-19; employees; job satisfaction; mental health; resume work; turnover intention; work attitudes; work engagement.