Relationship between risk perception of COVID‐19 and job withdrawal among Chinese nurses: The effect of work–family conflict and job autonomy

The aim of this study was to examine the mediating role of work-family conflict and the moderating role of job autonomy on the association between risk perception of COVID-19 and job withdrawal among Chinese nurses during the initial disease outbreak.Nurses' job withdrawal can not only reduce the quality and efficiency of care but also give rise to turnover during the COVID-19 pandemic. Thus, it is essential to clarify how and when the risk perception of COVID-19 influences the job withdrawal behaviours of nurses and to provide guidelines for reducing nurses' job withdrawal.A two-wave study was conducted among 287 Chinese nurses from 11 COVID-19-designated hospitals during the initial outbreak of the disease from March through April 2020. Data on the risk perception of COVID-19, job autonomy and work-family conflict were collected at time 1, and 1 month later, job withdrawal data were collected at time 2. Model 4 and Model 14 from SPSS macro PROCESS were used to test the mediating effect of work-family conflict and the moderating effect of job autonomy, respectively.Work-family conflict mediated 60.54% of the relationship between risk perception of COVID-19 and job withdrawal. Job autonomy positively moderated the relation between work-family conflict and job withdrawal (β = 0.12, P < 0.01).Risk perception of COVID-19 influenced nurses' job withdrawal through work-family conflict. Job autonomy exaggerated the association between work-family conflict and job withdrawal.Managers should provide more supportive resources to help nurses cope with the risk of COVID-19 to decrease work-family conflict and job withdrawal, and they should strengthen supervision over the work processes of nurses.