Understanding the Impact of Personal Resources on Emotional Exhaustion Among Emergency Healthcare Workers: A Structural Equation Modelling Approach

Background/Objectives: The COVID-19 pandemic supposed an increase of burnout vulnerability to the healthcare workers, which often translated into higher potential risks for their personal safety and that of their patients. This study is based on the JD-R model to explore emotional exhaustion and stress as a result of a lack of personal re-sources such as self-efficacy to cope with stress, unhealthy lifestyle, poor emotion reg-ulation, and work demands. Methods: The sample was composed by 189 emergency healthcare workers from Spain, aged between 26 and 59 years old. A cross-sectional and correlational study was carried out through an online platform. Results: The me-diation, moderation and Structural Equation Modelling analyses supported the pro-posed model, demonstrating good fit to the data. Work demands showed both a posi-tive direct effect and an indirect effect on emotional exhaustion through emotion reg-ulation and stress. In turn, self-efficacy to cope with stress and healthy lifestyle showed indirect effects on emotional exhaustion, also through emotion regulation and stress. Further, healthy lifestyle moderated the relationship between stress and emotional ex-haustion, by mitigating the negative influence of stress on emotional exhaustion. Con-clusion: The study highlights the importance of incorporating selfcare in coping with stress and preventing burnout and should be considered when designing interventions in the emergency healthcare context to improve wellbeing in its workers.