Injurious Memories from the COVID-19 Frontline: The Impact of Episodic Memories of Self- and Other-Potentially Morally Injurious Events on Romanian Nurses’ Burnout, Turnover Intentions and Basic Need Satisfaction

Mihaela Alexandra Gherman, Laura Arhiri, Andrei Corneliu Holman and Camelia Soponaru
Additional contact information
Mihaela Alexandra Gherman: Faculty of Psychology and Education Sciences, Alexandru Ioan Cuza University, Str. Toma Cozma 3, 700554 Iasi, Romania
Laura Arhiri: Faculty of Psychology and Education Sciences, Alexandru Ioan Cuza University, Str. Toma Cozma 3, 700554 Iasi, Romania
Andrei Corneliu Holman: Faculty of Psychology and Education Sciences, Alexandru Ioan Cuza University, Str. Toma Cozma 3, 700554 Iasi, Romania
Camelia Soponaru: Faculty of Psychology and Education Sciences, Alexandru Ioan Cuza University, Str. Toma Cozma 3, 700554 Iasi, Romania

IJERPH, 2022, vol. 19, issue 15, 1-25

Abstract: Nurses have been frequently exposed to Potentially Morally Injurious Events (PMIEs) during the COVID-19 pandemic. Due to resource scarcity, they both perpetrated (self-PMIEs) and passively witnessed (other-PMIEs) moral transgressions toward the patients, severely violating their moral values. Our study investigated the impact of self- and other-PMIEs on work outcomes by exploring nurses’ episodic memories of these events and the basic psychological need thwarting associated with them. Using a quasi-experimental design, on a convenience sample of 463 Romanian nurses, we found that PMIEs memories were uniquely associated with burnout and turnover intentions, after controlling for socio-demographic characteristics, general basic psychological need satisfaction at work and other phenomenological characteristics. Both self- and other-PMIEs memories were need thwarting, with autonomy and competence mediating their differential impact on burnout, and with relatedness—on turnover intentions. Our findings emphasize the need for organizational moral repair practices, which should include enhancing nurses’ feelings of autonomy, relatedness and competence. Psychological counseling and psychotherapy should be provided to nurses to prevent their episodic memories of PMIEs to be (fully) integrated in autobiographical knowledge, because this integration could have severe consequences on their psycho-social function and occupational health, as well as on the organizational climate in healthcare institutions.

Keywords: potentially morally injurious event (PMIE); turnover intentions; COVID-19 pandemic; basic psychological need satisfaction; nurses; burnout; episodic memories; self-determination theory; memories-as-independent-representations; autobiographical knowledge (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I I1 I3 Q Q5 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2022
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/19/15/9604/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/19/15/9604/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jijerp:v:19:y:2022:i:15:p:9604-:d:880288

Access Statistics for this article

IJERPH is currently edited by Ms. Jenna Liu

More articles in IJERPH from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().