Zhongguo quanke yixue (Jul 2024)
Mediating Effect of Self-regulatory Fatigue and Moderating Effect of Health Literacy in the Relationship between Occupational Stress and Mental Health in Lawyers
Abstract
Background Lawyer is one of the most stressful jobs, but lawyers' occupational stress is rather under-researched in China. Previous studies have shown that occupational stress and mental health are related to self-regulatory fatigue and health literacy in lawyers, but there is a lack of research on their interaction mechanism. Objective To explore the association of occupational stress and mental health in lawyers and the internal mechanism of action of self-regulatory fatigue and health literacy between them. Methods A convenience sample of 660 lawyers from 7 leading Chinese law firms were surveyed from May to June 2022 using questionnaires including a self-compiled Demographic Questionnaire, the Lawyers' Occupational Stress Scale, Symptom Checklist-90 (SCL-90), Self-regulatory Fatigue Scale (SRF-S) and National Residents' Health Literacy Surveillance Rapid Assessment Questionnaire (HLSRAQ). Stepwise regression was used to explore the mediating effect of self-regulatory fatigue between occupational stress and mental health, and bootstrap method was used to test the mediating effect of self-regulatory fatigue. Model 5 in PROCESS 3.4 was used to explore the moderated mediating effect of health literacy between occupational stress and mental health. Bootstrap method was used to test the moderating mediating effect of health literacy, and further simple slope test was used to test the moderating effect, and the effects of occupational stress on the mental health of lawyers with different health literacy levels were analyzed. Results Six hundred and fifty-six cases (99.39%) who effectively responded to the survey were included for final analysis. The average scores of occupational stress, SCL-90, SRF-S and HLSRAQ were (106.9±34.8), 39.0 (15.0, 84.0), (39.4±10.0) and (13.9±3.7), respectively. Stepwise regression analysis showed that occupational stress could positively predict mental health (β=0.36, t=13.40, P<0.01). Self-regulatory fatigue also had a significant positive predictive effect on mental health (β=0.55, t=20.32, P<0.01). Bootstrap analysis showed that 95%CI of the total effect, indirect effect and direct effect of occupational stress on mental health did not include 0 (P<0.01). The moderated mediating effect analysis showed that the product of occupational stress and health literacy had a significant predictive effect on mental health (β=-0.02, t=-2.00, P<0.05). The Bootstrap method showed that the 95%CI of the indirect effect of lawyer occupational stress on mental health did not include 0 (P<0.01). Simple slope test showed that the association between them was found to be statistically significant regardless of being moderated by different levels of health literacy (P<0.01), and the predictive effect of occupational stress showed a downward trend with the improvement of health literacy level (P<0.01) . Conclusion Occupational stress influenced mental health in lawyers medicated by self-regulatory fatigue with health literacy as a moderator.
Keywords
