Explore the Mechanism for Seafarers to Reconnect with Work After Post-pandemic Psychological Distress (PAPIST): The Moderating Role of Health-supporting Climate

Covid-19 has disrupted the lives of employees all over the world. After experiencing a prolonged yet ongoing destructive event (i.e. Covid-19), finding an effective and non-invasive way to get employees back and engage in work is a huge challenge for scholars. Few studies have focused on returning to work after a traumatic event (limited time), but the post-pandemic psychological stress caused by the Covid-19 (PAPIST) has not received much attention. Current research addresses this gap and uses a comprehensive model drawn from the transactional model of stress and the Kahn psychological framework to advance the work of predicting PAPIST. Specifically, the current research investigates how PAPIST is related to job engagement, and emotional exhaustion and how job reattachment mediates the relationship. In addition, we use health support climate (HSC) as a boundary condition in our model, which can weaken the impact of PAPIST and enhance the effectiveness of job reattachment in reducing emotional exhaustion and increasing job engagement. To test our model, we collected data in multiple waves from Chinese seaports, where seafarers came to work after the restrictions were lifted in China. The current research is one of the earliest scholarly contributions. It paved the way for the research to solve the problem of workers returning to work after large-scale destructive events, and discussed important implications.