ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Public Health
Sec. Occupational Health and Safety
Volume 13 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fpubh.2025.1626328
Job Satisfaction, Burnout, and Safety Behavior in Air Traffic Controllers: A Mediation Analysis and Decision Tree Insights
Provisionally accepted
- Civil Aviation Flight University of China, Guanghan, China
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This study investigated the mediating role of burnout in the relationship between job satisfaction and safety behavior among air traffic controllers (ATCs), and used decision tree model to identify the most influential factor affect ATCs' safety behavior. Data on job satisfaction, burnout, and safety behavior were collected from 357 ATCs using established questionnaires. Bootstrap analysis was used to test the mediation effect of burnout and a decision tree model was employed to identify the most influential factor affecting ATCs' safety behavior. Results from bootstrap analysis revealed that burnout partially mediates the relationship between job satisfaction and safety behavior, accounting for 40% of the total effect. Furthermore, the decision tree model identified burnout as the primary predictor of ATCs' safety behavior, followed by job satisfaction and other factors. These findings indicating that enhancing safety performance should prioritize targeted interventions to reduce burnout.
Keywords: Air traffic controllers, Mediating effect, Aviation safety, Decision tree model, safety behavior
Received: 15 May 2025; Accepted: 28 Aug 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Li, Huang, Zhang, Luo, Niu, Guo and Peng. 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: Xing Peng, Civil Aviation Flight University of China, Guanghan, China
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