Job satisfaction eases mental workload in obstetrics staff, but hardiness mediation unsupported

Healthcare personnel working in gynecology and obstetrics clinics face a demanding combination of emotional strain and technical workload, yet the psychological factors that shape how job satisfaction translates into perceived mental workload have remained poorly mapped. A new cross-sectional study from a training and research hospital in eastern Turkey set out to test one proposed pathway: that psychological hardiness, a resilience-related trait, might carry the protective influence of job satisfaction onto mental workload. The answer, according to the data, is more complicated than the hypothesis predicted.

The research team surveyed 183 healthcare professionals working in the hospital’s gynecology and obstetrics clinics, collecting data with a sociodemographic form, the Minnesota Satisfaction Questionnaire, the Mental Workload Scale, and the Psychological Hardiness Scale. To test the mediation model, the researchers used observed-variable path analysis with maximum likelihood estimation and 5,000 bootstrap resamples, a robust approach for estimating indirect effects in moderate-sized samples.

The results confirmed two of the expected links. Job satisfaction was positively associated with psychological hardiness, with a standardized coefficient of 0.439, and it was negatively associated with mental workload after accounting for hardiness, with a coefficient of −0.276. Both associations were statistically significant. In practical terms, staff who reported greater satisfaction with their work also reported stronger psychological hardiness and a lighter sense of mental burden.

However, the proposed mediating mechanism did not hold. Once job satisfaction was accounted for, psychological hardiness showed no significant association with mental workload, with a coefficient of 0.094 and a p-value of 0.240. The indirect effect of job satisfaction on mental workload through hardiness was likewise not statistically significant, with an unstandardized estimate of 0.025 and a bias-corrected bootstrap 95 percent confidence interval ranging from −0.019 to 0.076. Because that interval crosses zero, the data cannot rule out the possibility that the true indirect effect is negligible or even slightly negative.

The overall model explained 19.3 percent of the variance in psychological hardiness and 6.2 percent of the variance in mental workload. These figures suggest that while job satisfaction is a meaningful correlate of both outcomes, most of the variation in hardiness and workload among these healthcare workers depends on factors the model did not measure.

The authors conclude that higher job satisfaction was associated with lower mental workload and greater psychological hardiness, but that the findings did not support the proposed mediating role of psychological hardiness. In other words, hardiness appears to move in parallel with satisfaction rather than serving as the statistical bridge between satisfaction and workload in this sample.

Several limitations shape how these results should be read. The study was cross-sectional, meaning all variables were measured at a single point in time, so the direction of influence among satisfaction, hardiness, and workload cannot be established from these data alone. The sample came from a single hospital in eastern Turkey, and the participants all worked in one clinical specialty, which limits generalizability to other settings and professions.

The researchers recommend longitudinal studies to clarify the temporal relationships among job satisfaction, psychological hardiness, and mental workload. For now, the study stands as a careful test of a popular mediation hypothesis that the data did not support, while still documenting that satisfaction and hardiness rise together and that satisfied staff report a lighter mental burden.

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

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

Article References: Güney, M. C., & Sarıboğa, Y. (2026). Testing psychological hardiness as a mediator between job satisfaction and mental workload among healthcare personnel in obstetrics and gynecology. Scientific Reports. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-026-76860-8

Image Credits: AI Generated

DOI: 10.1038/s41598-026-76860-8

Keywords: Testing, psychological, hardiness, mediator, between, satisfaction, mental, workload, healthcare, personnel, obstetrics, gynecology