ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Public Health
Sec. Occupational Health and Safety
Volume 13 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fpubh.2025.1581624
This article is part of the Research TopicEvaluating Organizational Health Culture: Tools and Impact on Workplace Health InterventionsView all 5 articles
Network analysis of work-family support and career identity and their associations with job burnout among primary healthcare workers: a cross-sectional study
Provisionally accepted
- 1Department of Health Service Management, School of Health Service Management, Anhui Medical University, Hefei, China
- 2Department of Epidemiology and Biostatistics, School of Public Health, Anhui Medical University, Hefei, China
- 3Ma’anshan Center for Disease Control and Prevention, Ma’anshan, China, Ma’anshan, China
- 4The Affiliated Ma’anshan Center for Disease Control and Prevention of Anhui Medical University, Ma’anshan, China, Ma’anshan, China
- 5Institute of Hospital Management, Anhui Medical University, Hefei, China
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Objective: To explore the complex associations between job burnout, career identity, and workfamily support among primary healthcare workers from a network perspective.Methods: Data were sourced from primary healthcare institutions in China's's central provinces. We used the Maslach Burnout Inventory Comprehensive Survey, a career identity scale tailored for primary healthcare workers, and the Chinese version of the Work-Family Support Questionnaire. A Gaussian network model was used to identify key factors, with "central nodes" being those that strongly influence others and "bridge nodes" connecting different parts of the network.Results: Of the 8,135 participants surveyed, 5,120 (62.9%) reported job burnout. Compared to those with burnout, the non-burnout group scored higher in career identity, family support, and work support (54.29 vs. 49.42; 71.58 vs. 61.26; 35.03 vs. 31.20; p < 0.001). Network analysis revealed structural differences in the burnout-support-identity networks between groups after propensity score matching (M = 0.261, p < 0.001). In both groups, "understanding of role, content and requirements" were central nodes, while "work and family support" served as bridge nodes. Burnout was closely related to work support, family support, job suitability, and media criticism.Targeting central and bridge nodes can help reduce job burnout among primary healthcare workers.
Keywords: Job burnout, Career identity, work-family support, Scientific perspective, Propensity score matching, primary healthcare, network structure
Received: 22 Feb 2025; Accepted: 12 Jun 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Liu, Xu, Yang, Sun, Qin and Fang. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence:
Qi-rong Qin, Department of Epidemiology and Biostatistics, School of Public Health, Anhui Medical University, Hefei, China
Gui-xia Fang, Department of Health Service Management, School of Health Service Management, Anhui Medical University, Hefei, China
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