Testing psychological hardiness as a mediator between job satisfaction and mental workload among healthcare personnel in obstetrics and gynecology

The relationships among job satisfaction, psychological hardiness, and mental workload among healthcare personnel working in gynecology and obstetrics clinics remain insufficiently understood. To examine the proposed mediating role of psychological hardiness in the relationship between job satisfaction and mental workload among the healthcare personnel working in gynecology and obstetrics clinics. This cross-sectional study included 183 healthcare professionals working in gynecology and obstetrics clinics at a training and research hospital in eastern Turkey. Data were collected using a sociodemographic form, the Minnesota Satisfaction Questionnaire, the Mental Workload Scale, and the Psychological Hardiness Scale. The proposed mediation model was examined using observed-variable path analysis with maximum likelihood estimation and 5,000 bootstrap resamples. Job satisfaction was positively associated with psychological hardiness (β = 0.439, p < 0.001) and negatively associated with mental workload after accounting for psychological hardiness (β = −0.276, p < 0.001). Psychological hardiness was not significantly associated with mental workload after accounting for job satisfaction (β = 0.094, p = 0.240). The indirect effect was not statistically significant (B = 0.025, bias-corrected bootstrap 95% CI: −0.019 to 0.076, p = 0.228). The model explained 19.3% of the variance in psychological hardiness and 6.2% of the variance in mental workload. Higher job satisfaction was associated with lower mental workload and greater psychological hardiness. The findings did not support the proposed mediating role of psychological hardiness. Longitudinal studies are needed to clarify the temporal relationships among these variables.