Impact of COVID-19 anxiety on work stress in seafarers: the mediating role of COVID-19 burnout and intention to quit.

Abstract

Background: The frequent encounters of seafarers with people from different countries compared to other occupations increase their risk of contracting different variants of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19). This risk may cause additional anxiety for them. The main purpose of this research is to determine the mediating role of COVID-19 burnout and intention to quit in the impact of seafarers' anxiety about contracting COVID-19 on work stress.

Materials and methods: The research is a quantitative correlational research design cross-sectional study. We determined the research data according to the random sampling technique. Participants consist of 390 maritime business employees operating in Istanbul and Izmir. We determined the participants based on voluntary participation. We collected the data with the help of the Coronavirus Anxiety Scale, COVID-19 Burnout Scale, Intention to Quit Scale, and Work Stress Perception Scale.

Results: The study found that seafarers' anxiety about contracting the novel coronavirus positively influences their perception of job stress and that COVID-19 burnout and intention to quit strongly mediate this interaction. We also determined that seafarers had a high level of COVID-19 anxiety, leading to a higher perception of COVID-19 burnout.

Conclusions: These findings mean that although personal factors are important, negative psychological perceptions feed off each other and cause another psychological perception. The research results need to be strengthened by psychological factors such as job satisfaction, organizational trust and organizational support, and their psychological resilience should be increased so that seafarers do not show COVID-19 anxiety due to job stress and intention to quit.