The Thought of Death in a Pandemic Era: Can Anxiety Determine the Nexus between the Accessibility, Availability and Use of Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) for COVID-19 and Work Behaviour among Aviation Workers?
Since the emergence of COVID-19, the aviation sector has been one of the numerous industries which have been affected the most. In this present paper, the thought of death among aviation workers as an indicator of anxiety at a time when the availability, access to, and use of Personal Protective Equ...
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MDPI AG
2022-01-01
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Online Access: | https://www.mdpi.com/2227-9032/10/2/215 |
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author | Edmund Nana Kwame Nkrumah Suxia Liu David Doe Fiergbor Linda Serwah Akoto |
author_facet | Edmund Nana Kwame Nkrumah Suxia Liu David Doe Fiergbor Linda Serwah Akoto |
author_sort | Edmund Nana Kwame Nkrumah |
collection | DOAJ |
description | Since the emergence of COVID-19, the aviation sector has been one of the numerous industries which have been affected the most. In this present paper, the thought of death among aviation workers as an indicator of anxiety at a time when the availability, access to, and use of Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) remains paramount to the survival of work in the line of duties and its influence on different work behaviors was assessed. The theoretical foundation of the study was built on the process efficiency theory, attentional interference theory, and the terror management theory (TMT), which focuses on both the psychological and emotional responses exhibited by people due to fear or worry about a specific situation. The study adopted an exploratory study design that incorporates a cross-sectional and self-reported survey among 646 frontline workers across 12 international airlines and the Ghana Airport Company Limited (GACL), Accra, Ghana using simple random sampling and convenient sampling techniques. After all the preliminary tests were performed, the path analysis estimated by Structural Equation Modelling (SEM) indicated that anxiety has a significant influence on workers’ stress-adaptive performance and task performance, but recorded no significant causal link with interpersonal performance. The findings indicated that all three proxies of employee work behaviours, which focus on both adaptive and task performance, were significantly related to workers’ access, availability, and use of PPE (APPE). The association between anxiety and APPE was also found to be significant. Bootstrapping mediation analysis shows that anxiety partially mediates the influence APPE has on both stress-adaptive performance and task performance, but did not show any mediating effect on the association between APPE and interpersonal performance. Among the three dimensions of death anxiety, both the fear of death (FDE) and death intrusion (DINT) indicated a significant partial mediating effect on the influence APPE has on all three multidimensional constructs of work behaviours. The findings literally prove that worrying about the fatality risk associated with COVID-19 is highly predictive. |
first_indexed | 2024-03-09T21:49:39Z |
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issn | 2227-9032 |
language | English |
last_indexed | 2024-03-09T21:49:39Z |
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spelling | doaj.art-324280a961ce4d499e2d5b17fe14af572023-11-23T20:08:15ZengMDPI AGHealthcare2227-90322022-01-0110221510.3390/healthcare10020215The Thought of Death in a Pandemic Era: Can Anxiety Determine the Nexus between the Accessibility, Availability and Use of Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) for COVID-19 and Work Behaviour among Aviation Workers?Edmund Nana Kwame Nkrumah0Suxia Liu1David Doe Fiergbor2Linda Serwah Akoto3School of Management, Jiangsu University, 301 Xuefu Road, Jingkou District, Zhenjiang 212013, ChinaSchool of Management, Jiangsu University, 301 Xuefu Road, Jingkou District, Zhenjiang 212013, ChinaSchool of Management, Jiangsu University, 301 Xuefu Road, Jingkou District, Zhenjiang 212013, ChinaSchool of Management, Jiangsu University, 301 Xuefu Road, Jingkou District, Zhenjiang 212013, ChinaSince the emergence of COVID-19, the aviation sector has been one of the numerous industries which have been affected the most. In this present paper, the thought of death among aviation workers as an indicator of anxiety at a time when the availability, access to, and use of Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) remains paramount to the survival of work in the line of duties and its influence on different work behaviors was assessed. The theoretical foundation of the study was built on the process efficiency theory, attentional interference theory, and the terror management theory (TMT), which focuses on both the psychological and emotional responses exhibited by people due to fear or worry about a specific situation. The study adopted an exploratory study design that incorporates a cross-sectional and self-reported survey among 646 frontline workers across 12 international airlines and the Ghana Airport Company Limited (GACL), Accra, Ghana using simple random sampling and convenient sampling techniques. After all the preliminary tests were performed, the path analysis estimated by Structural Equation Modelling (SEM) indicated that anxiety has a significant influence on workers’ stress-adaptive performance and task performance, but recorded no significant causal link with interpersonal performance. The findings indicated that all three proxies of employee work behaviours, which focus on both adaptive and task performance, were significantly related to workers’ access, availability, and use of PPE (APPE). The association between anxiety and APPE was also found to be significant. Bootstrapping mediation analysis shows that anxiety partially mediates the influence APPE has on both stress-adaptive performance and task performance, but did not show any mediating effect on the association between APPE and interpersonal performance. Among the three dimensions of death anxiety, both the fear of death (FDE) and death intrusion (DINT) indicated a significant partial mediating effect on the influence APPE has on all three multidimensional constructs of work behaviours. The findings literally prove that worrying about the fatality risk associated with COVID-19 is highly predictive.https://www.mdpi.com/2227-9032/10/2/215death anxietyCOVID-19pandemicpersonal protective equipment (PPE)occupational healthwork behaviors |
spellingShingle | Edmund Nana Kwame Nkrumah Suxia Liu David Doe Fiergbor Linda Serwah Akoto The Thought of Death in a Pandemic Era: Can Anxiety Determine the Nexus between the Accessibility, Availability and Use of Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) for COVID-19 and Work Behaviour among Aviation Workers? Healthcare death anxiety COVID-19 pandemic personal protective equipment (PPE) occupational health work behaviors |
title | The Thought of Death in a Pandemic Era: Can Anxiety Determine the Nexus between the Accessibility, Availability and Use of Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) for COVID-19 and Work Behaviour among Aviation Workers? |
title_full | The Thought of Death in a Pandemic Era: Can Anxiety Determine the Nexus between the Accessibility, Availability and Use of Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) for COVID-19 and Work Behaviour among Aviation Workers? |
title_fullStr | The Thought of Death in a Pandemic Era: Can Anxiety Determine the Nexus between the Accessibility, Availability and Use of Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) for COVID-19 and Work Behaviour among Aviation Workers? |
title_full_unstemmed | The Thought of Death in a Pandemic Era: Can Anxiety Determine the Nexus between the Accessibility, Availability and Use of Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) for COVID-19 and Work Behaviour among Aviation Workers? |
title_short | The Thought of Death in a Pandemic Era: Can Anxiety Determine the Nexus between the Accessibility, Availability and Use of Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) for COVID-19 and Work Behaviour among Aviation Workers? |
title_sort | thought of death in a pandemic era can anxiety determine the nexus between the accessibility availability and use of personal protective equipment ppe for covid 19 and work behaviour among aviation workers |
topic | death anxiety COVID-19 pandemic personal protective equipment (PPE) occupational health work behaviors |
url | https://www.mdpi.com/2227-9032/10/2/215 |
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