Prediction of Non-Deterministic Moral Decision-Making in Medical Staff Based on Facing Death, Probability of Infection, and Job-Satisfaction: Mediating Role of Anxiety

The aim of this research was to investigate the relationship between facing patients’ death, the probability of infection to COVID-19, job satisfaction, and non-deterministic moral decision-making with mediating role of anxiety.
This research was a correlational and path analysis study, and participants were selected based on convenience sampling during the first peak of COVID-19 in May 2020. In this study, 190 healthcare workers in hospitals allocated to COVID-19 patients responded to questionnaires of non-deterministic moral decision-making scenarios (Christensen, Flexas, Calabrese, Gut, & Gomila, 2014), probability of infection to COVID-19 (Hyland et al., 2020), facing patients’ death (Mosheva, 2020), job-satisfaction (Afulani et al., 2021), and COVID-19 related anxiety (Benham et al., 2021). Data were analyzed using correlation and path analysis with SPSS and AMOS.
Findings showed that utilitarian behavior is positively correlated with anxiety (p < 0.001), facing patients’ death (p < 0.001), and the probability of infection (p < 0.001) and negatively correlated with job satisfaction (p < 0.01). Moreover, another finding was that anxiety mediated the relationship between the probability of infection and utilitarian behavior (p < 0.01) but not the other ones.
These findings imply that the situation caused by COVID-19 has cognitive and psychological impacts on healthcare workers, and as a result, changes their moral decisions and their attitude regarding resource allocation.