Abstract:

The healthcare sector is a labor-intensive industry where the healthcare professionals have a heavy workload. The outbreak of the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic has caused an additional increase in the workload of healthcare professionals. The heavy workload of the employees may result in an increase in the job stress, burnout, and their turnover intention (Thompson vd., 2005: 204; Sheraz, 2014: 220). The present study examines the effect of the workload of healthcare workers on their job stress, burnout, and turnover intention during the COVID-19 pandemic, and the effect of the job stress and burnout on the turnover intention. The study was also conducted to determine the impact of the workload on turnover intention along with the mediation role of job stress and burnout. For this purpose, a questionnaire was applied to 227 healthcare workers. According to the findings of the study, no statistically significant relationship was found between the workload and turnover intention (β=0.12, p >0.05). However, it was determined that the workload had a significant relationship with the job stress (β=0.36, p<0.01) and burnout (β=0.25, p<0.01); and it was determined that job stress (β=0.63, p< 0.01) and burnout (β=0.67, p<0.01) had a statistically significant and positive effect on the turnover intention. On the other hand, no mediation effect of the job stress and burnout for the relationship between workload and turnover intention was determined.

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