Safety first, but how? Examining the impact of safety leadership in frontline healthcare workers' safety performance during health crisis

Abstract

With the high rates of health workers' mortality and morbidity during health crises such as the COVID-19 pandemic, this study examined how safety leadership style could improve health workers safety performance with a mediating role of safety consciousness (SCC), and a moderating role of communication transparency (CT). Survey data from 582 health workers in Ghana's Greater Accra and Ashanti regions were gathered and analysed using structural equation modelling in SMART PLS 4. The findings show that safety leadership positively impacts safety performance. Additionally, safety leadership had a positive impact on affected consciousness. Again, SCC had a positive effect on performance. Furthermore, SCC mediated the positive relationship between safety leadership and safety performance. Finally, the SCC-safety compliance was negatively moderated by CT, though it did not moderate the SCC-safety participation relationship. This paper holds significance as it offers strategies to enhance the safety performance of frontline healthcare workers during health emergencies such as pandemics. The measures provided in the study potentially mitigate the risks of virus contraction and health workers during health emergencies.