Skip to main content
Download PDF
Download ePub

How surface acting affects turnover intention among family doctors in rural China: the mediating role of emotional exhaustion and the moderating role of occupational commitment

Human Resources for Health volume 21, Article number: 3 (2023) Cite this article

Abstract

Background

Family doctors in rural China are the main force for primary health care, but the workforce has not been well stabilized in recent years. Surface acting is an emotional labor strategy with a disparity between inner feelings and emotional displays, provoking negative effects such as emotional exhaustion, occupational commitment reduction, and, consequently, increasing turnover rate. With the Conservation of Resources theory, this study explores how the surface acting of rural family doctors affects turnover intention through emotional exhaustion and investigates what role occupational commitment plays in this relationship.

Methods

With a valid response rate of 93.89%, 953 valid data were collected by an anonymous self-administered questionnaire survey in December 2021 in Shandong Province, China. Cronbach’s Alpha and confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) were used to estimate reliability and construct validity, respectively. The PROCESS macro in SPSS was performed to analyze the mediating and moderated mediation effects of surface acting, emotional exhaustion, occupational commitment, and turnover intention.

Results

Reliability and validity indicated that the measurement instruments were acceptable. Surface acting had a direct positive effect on turnover intention (β = 0.481, 95% CI [0.420, 0.543]). Emotional exhaustion partially mediated the effect of surface acting on turnover intention (indirect effect: 0.214, 95% CI [0.175, 0.256]). Occupational commitment moderated the effect of emotional exhaustion on turnover intention (β = − 0.065, 95% CI [− 0.111, − 0.019]), and moderated the indirect effect of surface acting on turnover intention via emotional exhaustion (index of moderated mediation: − 0.035).

Conclusions

Emotional exhaustion partially mediates the relationship between surface acting and turnover intention among family doctors in rural China, and occupational commitment moderates the direct effect of emotional exhaustion on turnover intention and further moderates the mediating effect. Policymakers should pay more attention to the effects of emotional labor and emotional resource depletion on the stability of rural health human resources.

Peer Review reports

Introduction

The family doctor services policy is designed to play the role of “gatekeeper” for family doctors in primary health care, providing residents with an initial diagnosis and comprehensive and coordinated services throughout the life cycle [1]. This policy has been implemented in more than 50 countries, including the United States, the United Kingdom, Germany, and Canada, and has been proven in practice to be a cost-effective and feasible way to protect and maintain public health [2]. Although operational mechanisms and service models of the family doctor services policy are varied among countries, there are some common features and practices that require residents and family doctors to sign service contracts. For example, residents in the Netherlands need to choose a single general practitioner to register with [3], general practitioners in Norway have to sign healthcare contracts with residents [4], and the UK has adopted a state-managed model requiring residents to sign contracts with family doctors [5].

In 2016, the Chinese government comprehensively implemented the family doctor contract services system, intending to improve the health status of the population and the ability of patients to rationally choose medical institutions [6]. The family doctor contract services system in China works through residents voluntarily signing service contracts with family doctor teams, who provide free basic medical and public health services, as well as paid personalized health management services to help residents obtain long-term coordinated healthcare [7]. The family doctor team in China is generally composed of family doctors, nurses and public health doctors [8]. Family doctors are usually general practitioners registered in primary medical institutions and competent rural doctors, who play the role of leaders in teams and mainly take care of common diseases, provide consultation and referral services according to patients’ conditions, conduct interventions and follow-ups for patients with chronic diseases, perform home visit services for patients with special needs, etc. The main duties of nurses in family doctor teams are to understand the basic conditions of contracted residents, and assist family doctors in carrying out various services. Doctors engaged in preventive care, health education, and other public health services serve as public health doctors in family doctor teams, who are responsible for monitoring the health status of contracted residents in real-time, establishing and updating their health records, providing health education and consultation to contracted residents, and developing health plans for them through discussions with family doctors, etc. [8, 9]. The effective implementation of the family doctor contract services system is conducive to improving the quality of primary health care in China, accelerating the development of the graded diagnosis and treatment system, and ensuring targeted medical services to patients in a minimum amount of time [10].

In China, rural areas are defined as geographical complexes with natural, social, and economic characteristics and multiple functions such as production, living, ecology, and culture that are outside urban built-up areas, including towns and villages [11]. According to the 7th National Census of China in 2020, the rural population was approximately 500 million, accounting for 36.11% of the total population [12]. Studies have shown that rural residents in China have urgent medical demands, with an average of only 1.3 licensed doctors per 1 000 rural residents [13, 14]. A growing number of rural family doctors in China play an indispensable role in the provision of primary health care [15]. However, a heavy workload and great work pressure can lead to their turnover intention.

Turnover intention is possibly the most important and direct antecedent to the turnover decision, and the most immediate predictor of turnover [16], which affects the stability of the family doctor pool and the efficiency of services provided [17]. Most perspectives have placed turnover intention as the negative outcome of the combined evaluation of job satisfaction and the utility of the current job, and further taking steps to secure future employment, which can trigger the actual turnover [18]. In China, family doctors who are the main force of primary health care also suffer from continuous workforce shortages and high levels of turnover intention [19]. For example, Gan et al. [20] surveyed 3 236 family doctors in China who were registered general practitioners in primary medical institutions and found that the percentage of those with moderate or high levels of turnover intention was 71.1%. Li et al. [21] revealed that younger family doctors reported higher levels of turnover intention, with 80% of family doctors under 35 years of age having turnover intention. Family doctors with turnover intention result in lower morale, hidden absenteeism, and poor performance [22]. The prevalence of chronic diseases is higher and the accessibility of medical resources is lower in rural China [13, 23]. Widespread and continuous turnover intention of rural family doctors could aggravate the shortage of human resources, undermine the stability and sustainability of the healthcare system, and reduce the quality of primary health care, all of which are detrimental to improving the health status of rural residents.

Mobley et al. [24] identified job content characteristics as one of the significant factors influencing individuals’ turnover intention. Numerous studies [25,26,27] have also confirmed that the job characteristics of Chinese family doctors, such as heavy workload, variety of work, limited opportunities for career advancement, and the discrepancy between effort and income, can lead to turnover intention. A further study [21] has found that 90% of Chinese family doctors feel constantly fatigued and emotionally exhausted, which is not only related to the mentioned job characteristics, but also, more importantly, to the significant investment of energy and emotional resources. The accomplishment of family doctors’ work goals is closely related to the cooperation of residents. In this regard, family doctors keep optimizing their services to obtain residents’ support, including constantly improving their communication and attitudes to meet residents’ emotional demands, which implies more emotional labor on the part of family doctors. Surface acting, as an emotional labor strategy with a disparity between inner feelings and emotional displays, increases family doctors’ emotional depletion and work stress, resulting in emotional exhaustion and mental fatigue, and thus turnover intention. Additionally, occupational commitment, as a measure of individuals’ affective response to their occupation, can replenish the depletion of emotional resources and can also play a role in turnover intention [28].

This study draws on the Conservation of Resources (COR) theory to examine the relationships between surface acting, emotional exhaustion, occupational commitment, and turnover intention among family doctors in rural China. The COR theory is a resource-based stress theory that assumes that absolute or relative decreases in resources can lead to increases in individual stress, with the basic tenet that “individuals strive to obtain, preserve, foster, and protect the resources they value” [29]. The COR theory proposes five principles of “primacy of loss, resource investment, gain paradox, resource desperation, resource caravans and passageways” to explain individual resource conservation responses in coping with stress [30]. The emotional resource is an individual resource, and the COR theory suggests that individuals’ resources are depleted and not replenished at work, resulting in stress and emotional exhaustion due to resource imbalance [31]. Surface acting is an emotional labor strategy in which individuals deliberately fake their true inner feelings to project the emotional display expected by organizations, and it depletes the individuals’ emotional resources in the process [32]. According to the COR theory, when emotional resources are exhausted, individuals can, on one hand, promote the rapid recovery of emotional resources by timely replenishment of intrinsic resources through occupational commitment, which is of great value to the individual. On the other hand, it is also possible to activate individuals’ self-protective defensive mechanisms and show some aggressive and irrational behaviors, such as leaving the job, in order to protect their remaining emotional resources. This study explored the above issues by analyzing a group of rural family doctors, in the hope that the findings of this study can provide important practical guidance for health administration departments and medical institutions as a basis for developing interventions to reduce the turnover rate of family doctors. Meanwhile, this study is also beneficial to break through the limitations of existing studies, which mostly explore the workload and work rewards of family doctors, with little consideration of the amount of emotional labor undertaken by family doctors in their actual work, especially the insufficient awareness of the adverse effects of surface acting.

Literature review and hypothesis development

Surface acting and turnover intention

The work of doctors requires not only physical and mental effort, but also emotional labor [33]. Emotional labor, regulating the expression of feelings at work, was defined by Hochschild [34] as the management of feelings for creating a publicly observable display of the face and body to get paid. Emotional labor, a form of labor different from mental and physical labor, involves following specific emotional display rules that refer to the standards set by organizations as the appropriate expression of emotions, and requires employees to consciously control their emotions to achieve tasks regardless of how they truly feel [32]. Deep acting and surface acting are two main strategies of emotional labor, but they differ in the effort and intention to regulate emotional expressions. When engaging in deep acting, individuals attempt to change their inner feelings and show empathy to match the desired emotional displays [35]. However, in surface acting, individuals display emotions via faking without shaping inner emotional states in order to cope with the work, which is assumed to be “faking in bad faith” [36].

Family doctors are in extensive contact with residents in their daily work. Given the low health literacy of rural residents [37], and poor trust of patients toward doctors [38], family doctors in rural areas are more frequently required to employ emotional strategies to improve communication and attitudes in order to obtain the cooperation of rural residents [39]. It has been revealed that deep acting is gradual over time and doctors rarely change their feelings immediately to truly understand their patients, but instead, surface acting is employed by doctors to help patients develop hope and change viewpoints [40]. Moreover, a positive relationship between harsh treatment from patients and surface acting by doctors has been reported [39]. Gan et al. [17] found that Chinese family doctors are regularly exposed to workplace violence, with emotional abuse from patients being the most common type, so family doctors often employ surface acting in their work. Meanwhile, taking into account the demographics and health literacy of rural residents, family doctors in rural areas are more inclined to control their inner feelings and cater to the medical demands of the patients by surface acting to accomplish their work targets.

Compared to authentic, positive emotions elicited by deep acting, surface acting is generally related to more detrimental outcomes, such as developing emotional dissonance and causing emotional exhaustion [41]. Grandey [42] found that individuals who have to engage in high levels of surface acting are more likely to have turnover intention. Evidence of the link between surface acting and turnover intention can be provided from theoretical studies on emotional dissonance. Emotional dissonance, a state of being uncomfortable because of a discrepancy between individuals’ feelings and their emotional displays, often occurs as individuals engage in surface acting, and individuals are then motivated to remove themselves from the surface acting that has caused the emotional dissonance, resulting in their turnover intention [43]. Rural family doctors suffer from emotional dissonance because of their surface acting and have turnover intention to get rid of this state early. Studies in the medical field have further indicated that professionals who regularly engage in surface acting have high levels of turnover intention [44, 45]. Summarizing the above theoretical arguments and empirical findings, we predict the following:

Hypothesis 1

Rural family doctors’ surface acting is positively related to turnover intention.

The mediating role of emotional exhaustion

Emotional exhaustion, an essential component of job burnout, is a chronic state where employees are depleted of emotional and physical resources due to excessively strict job requirements and continuous work stress [46]. The Conservation of Resources (COR) theory asserts that resources are available to help individuals cope with stressful experiences, but are also typically depleted by confronting stressful circumstances, and it further predicts that resource loss is a dominant component of the stressful process [47]. Resources refer to objects, personal characteristics, conditions, or energies that are valued by individuals or served as a means of attaining them, of which emotional resources also matter to individuals [30]. Emotional exhaustion occurs when individuals perceive they no longer have sufficient emotional resources to cope with the stresses being faced, or perceive their resources to be threatened with loss and not available after being invested [48].

Family doctors are regularly exposed to emotional happenstances and are expected to accept emotional management as part of their basic duties [49], and surface acting is a common strategy employed by them. In this circumstance, rural family doctors are constantly exposed to excessive mental stress as they fake their inner feelings in surface acting. According to the COR theory, the emotional resources depleted by surface acting can increase stress, and emotional exhaustion occurs when rural family doctors’ emotional resources cannot overcome mental stress, and thus surface acting is positively associated with emotional exhaustion [31]. Numerous studies [50, 51] have also consistently revealed that surface acting serves as an antecedent to emotional exhaustion. A study of Chinese hospital nurses by Deng et al. [52] found that surface acting is positively associated with emotional exhaustion. Zhao et al. [53] also confirmed in a study of front-line service teams that surface acting positively predicts emotional exhaustion. With this theoretical and empirical evidence, we expect the following:

Hypothesis 2

Rural family doctors’ surface acting is positively related to emotional exhaustion.

Prior studies [48, 54] have linked emotional exhaustion to numerous adverse work outcomes, such as increasing turnover intention. A study [55] with general practitioners in China confirmed a positive association between emotional exhaustion and turnover intention. A meta-analysis by Kim et al. [56] on predicting factors of turnover intention for Korean hospital nurses also identified emotional exhaustion as a significant factor contributing to turnover intention. Shah et al. [57] conducted a study of nurses’ job stress during the COVID-19 pandemic to support the positive effect of emotional exhaustion on turnover intention. The relationship between emotional exhaustion and turnover intention can also be explained by the COR theory. The basic tenet of the COR theory states that individuals strive to acquire, retain, and protect what they value, and minimize the threat of any resource loss, with the absence of resources leading to defensive attempts to protect the remaining resources [29]. This theory can be taken to explain that when faced with emotional exhaustion, individuals choose to leave their jobs to protect their remaining emotional resources from continuing to deplete, thus minimizing the loss of their emotional resources [32].

Compared to urban areas, rural areas are relatively lacking in terms of healthcare facilities construction and physician team building [58]. Family doctors in rural areas have heavy workloads with workforce shortages, and more frequent emotional labor [17], resulting in a state of emotional exhaustion where resources are often depleted and difficult to preserve. As explained by the COR theory [32], individuals’ self-protective defensive mechanisms are triggered in the state of emotional exhaustion, and leaving can protect their remaining emotional resources from further depletion. Therefore, rural family doctors in this situation may develop turnover intention, by leaving the present job to keep them from the threat of excessive resource depletion. Thus, the following hypothesis is proposed:

Hypothesis 3

Rural family doctors’ emotional exhaustion is positively related to turnover intention.

The COR theory suggests that individuals’ initial loss of resources will cause further loss with adverse behaviors and effects in the future, resulting in what is called a “downward spiral of loss” [59]. The COR theory and its “loss spiral” account for the fact that rural family doctors’ continuous surface acting accelerates the loss of emotional resources, leading to emotional exhaustion and further adverse behavioral or attitudinal inclinations toward avoiding or leaving the current situation. Thus, emotional exhaustion is a mediating role of surface acting and turnover intention, as confirmed in relevant studies [60, 61]. Therefore, the following hypothesis is proposed:

Hypothesis 4

Emotional exhaustion mediates the relationship between rural family doctors’ surface acting and turnover intention.

The moderating role of occupational commitment

Occupational commitment is defined in one dimension as affective commitment, expressing individuals’ positive feelings about their occupation, and in multiple dimensions such as continuance commitment and normative commitment [62, 63]. Yin et al. [64] described Chinese physicians’ occupational commitment from the one-dimensional perspective as positive feelings toward the occupation, expressing enjoyment, affirmation, and identification. Occupational commitment is perceived as a personal inner motivation for the occupation [65]. Individuals with strong occupational commitment are more adept at motivating their inner resources to properly solve problems at work, which can play an important role in the intention to stay [66]. Consistent with the resource replenishment principle in the COR theory [67], which states that individuals rely on additional resources to replenish lost resources and minimize the adverse impact of resource loss, occupational commitment allows individuals to reinforce personal characteristic resources, including resilience, in order to enhance their mental strength when dealing with work stress and resource depletion and strengthen their ability to adapt to challenging environments, thereby reducing the impact of an adverse events [29, 68]. A study of Chinese village doctors [14] has shown that improving resilience can reduce turnover intention.

Emotional exhaustion is the resulting state of an excessive depletion of individuals’ emotional resources and can occur from an undesirable work situation that requires individuals to proactively respond to [69]. When occupational commitment is relatively high, it provides a strong mental resource for individuals to reduce the effect of emotional exhaustion on turnover intention. When occupational commitment is relatively low, individuals cannot develop solutions or personal resources, thus making the effect of emotional exhaustion on turnover intention more severe. This logic is supported by studies indicating that occupational commitment can reduce the effect of emotional exhaustion on turnover intention. For example, it has been confirmed that higher levels of occupational commitment are less likely to involve emotional exhaustion, which can also reduce the adverse effect of emotional exhaustion, such as turnover intention [70, 71]. In addition, occupational commitment is a predictor of turnover intention, with higher levels of occupational commitment contributing to lower turnover intention [16, 62]. Combining the above analysis, and considering the existing rural health system situation, we assume that rural family doctors with higher levels of occupational commitment are less likely to have turnover intention after exposure to emotional exhaustion. Therefore, the following hypothesis is formed:

Hypothesis 5

Occupational commitment moderates the positive relationship between rural family doctors’ emotional exhaustion and turnover intention, such that the relationship is weaker for those with a higher level of occupational commitment than with a lower level of occupational commitment.

The above hypotheses demonstrate an indirect effect of rural family doctors’ surface acting on their turnover intention mediated by emotional exhaustion, while occupational commitment moderates the effect of emotional exhaustion on turnover intention. It is reasonable to integrate these hypotheses into a moderated mediation model, as we hypothesize as follows:

Hypothesis 6

Occupational commitment moderates the indirect effect of rural family doctors’ surface acting on turnover intention via emotional exhaustion, such that the indirect effect is weaker for those with a higher level of occupational commitment than with a lower level of occupational commitment.

Methods

Study design and sampling

Participants in this study were family doctors in rural China. Each participant read a statement explaining the purpose of the survey and consented to be involved in this survey. Before the formal survey, we conducted a pilot test in July 2021 using random sampling, and 150 questionnaires were distributed and 134 valid questionnaires were collected, with the valid response rate of 89.33%. In the pilot test, the mean age of rural family doctors was 48.36 years old, with 50.75% being female, and the reliability of the questionnaire was 0.668. Data for the final analysis of this study were obtained from a baseline survey of family doctors in rural areas held in December 2021 in Shandong Province.

Shandong Province is the second most populous province in China, with a population of 101.70 million people in 2021, of which 36.06% population lived in rural areas [23, 72]. Shandong Province is also an economically developed region in eastern China, with a GDP of 1147.13 billion US dollars in 2021 [72]. Shandong Province currently has 16 prefecture-level cities (a prefecture-level city is an administrative level below the province and above the county). Shandong Province issued the Guidelines for Family Doctor Contract Services in Shandong Province in 2017, in line with the guidelines required by the State Council, and implemented family doctor contract services based on this guideline with good achievements. By the end of 2021, Shandong Province formed a total of 32 000 family doctor teams and had 46.86 million contracted residents [72].

We conducted this formal survey using a stratified random sampling method. First, three prefecture-level cities in Shandong Province were sampled according to economic level, representing economically developed cities, economically moderate cities, and economically underdeveloped cities. Then, three counties were randomly sampled in each prefecture-level city, four to six townships were sampled in each county according to the size of the population, and twenty to thirty family doctors were randomly sampled in each township for the anonymous self-administered questionnaire survey. We assigned three to five well-trained investigators at each survey site to provide face-to-face assistance if participants had any questions when filling out the questionnaire. Each questionnaire was reviewed for quality by at least one investigator once it was completed. The investigators manually checked each item of every completed questionnaire to avoid omissions, mistakes, and logical errors. For example, if a rural family doctor wrote his/her family yearly income as 200 US dollars, which is far less than the average of Chinese family yearly income, the investigator would re-interview the participant and ask him/her to correct it on the spot if there was a filling error. Or if the same value was selected for all answers to the measured variables in the questionnaire, the investigator would ask the participant to reconfirm their accuracy of the answers. A total of 953 valid questionnaires were used for analysis after excluding those with incomplete data on key variables, with a valid response rate of 93.89%.

Measurement instruments

We measured the variables and designed the questionnaire according to the hypotheses of this study. The questionnaire covered the scales of surface acting, emotional exhaustion, occupational commitment, and turnover intention. All items were rated on a five-point Likert scale, with a range from 1 (strongly disagree) to 5 (strongly agree).

Surface acting was measured using five items reported by Wu [73], which was translated and revised from the scale of surface acting adopted by Grandey [36]. Sample items include “I can pretend to be in a good mood at work, even if I am not inside” and “It is like acting for me to show the appropriate expression and attitude at work”. These items have been verified to be of good reliability and validity in the sample of the Chinese population [74, 75]. Cronbach’s Alpha for our sample was 0.846.

Emotional exhaustion, an essential dimension of burnout, was measured with a five-item scale reported by Li et al. [76]. This scale was adapted from the Maslach Burnout Inventory-General Survey (MBI-GS) [77]. Sample items include “I feel physically and mentally exhausted from work” and “I feel exhausted when I finish work every day”. Studies have confirmed the good reliability and validity of this scale in the Chinese population [78, 79]. Cronbach’s Alpha for our sample was 0.934.

An adaptation of Huang and Yin’s [64] six-item scale of occupational commitment was used to measure how committed employees were to their occupation. An example item is “I am proud of my occupation”. The scale has been widely available in Chinese samples, showing good reliability and validity [80]. Cronbach’s Alpha for the present sample was 0.926.

Turnover intention was measured using a three-item scale, which translated by Yu et al. [81], and has been reported to have good reliability and validity in the Chinese population. A sample item is “I might be looking for a new job in the next year”. Cronbach’s Alpha for the present sample was 0.876.

Statistical analysis

First, a descriptive analysis was conducted to describe the demographic characteristics. Then, confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) was performed to assess the construct validity of the measurement variables using Amos 21.0. Given the sensitivity of the Chi-square fit statistic to the sample size, the ratio of the Chi-square statistic to the respective degrees of freedom (χ2/df) and a variety of other fit indices have been proposed to assess model adequacy [82]. In this study, the validity of the measurement variables was assessed with fit indices including χ2/df, Comparative Fit Index (CFI), Tucker–Lewis Index (TLI), root mean square error of approximation (RMSEA), and standardized root mean square residual (SRMR). We determined an acceptable fit using the conventional cut-off criteria of χ2/df < 3, CFI > 0.90, TLI > 0.90, RMSEA < 0.08, and SRMR < 0.08 [83, 84]. In addition, the Chi-square difference values of the models were used to assess the discriminant validity. Average variance extracted (AVE) and composite reliability (CR) were applied to evaluate the convergent validity, where the values of AVE above 0.5 and CR above 0.7 indicated good convergent validity [83]. Furthermore, bivariate correlations between surface acting, emotional exhaustion, occupational commitment, and turnover intention were analyzed by Pearson correlation analysis. Finally, the process macro in SPSS was performed to analyze mediating and moderated mediation effects, where Model 4 and Model 14 were used, respectively. In Model 4, surface acting was taken as the independent variable, turnover intention as the dependent variable, and emotional exhaustion as the mediating variable between surface acting and turnover intention. In Model 14, occupational commitment was set as a moderating variable between emotional exhaustion and turnover intention. Gender, age, marital status, educational background, and family yearly income were used as control variables in Model 4 and Model 14. The significance level for all tests was determined as P < 0.05.

Results

Demographic characteristics

Participants in this study were family doctors in rural China. Among the 953 participants, 599 (62.85%) were men and 354 (37.15%) were women. The age range of participants was from 20 to 80 years old, with the majority in the 40–49 age group, and the mean age was 46.65 years. Of the valid sample, 917 (96.22%) were married, and 515 (54.04%) graduated from a secondary technical school. The average yearly family income was 7458.99 US dollars. The specific demographic characteristics of the sample are shown in Table 1.

Table 1 Demographic characteristics of rural family doctors in this survey (n = 953)
Full size table

Validity of measurement variables

As shown in Table 2, the results of the CFA showed that the four-factor model (surface acting, emotional exhaustion, occupational commitment, and turnover intention) compared with three alternative models was fitted optimally and the fit indices were at an acceptable level (χ2/df = 2.944, CFI = 0.981, TLI = 0.976, RMSEA = 0.045, and SRMR = 0.058). In addition, the Chi-square difference values between the four-factor model and other models were statistically significant (∆χ2 > 10.83, P < 0.001), suggesting good discriminant validity [83]. Furthermore, the values of AVE for the four-factor model were acceptable, ranging from 0.543 to 0.682, and the values of CR were all above 0.7, ranging from 0.823 to 0.918. Finally, the result of Harman’s single-factor test showed that the variance explained by the first unrotated factor extracted was 45.52%, which was less than the empirical value of 50% [85], indicating low common method biases in this study.

Table 2 Confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) results
Full size table

Bivariate correlations

The mean, standard deviation and correlation coefficient of variables are displayed in Table 3. Surface acting was positively related to emotional exhaustion (r = 0.514, P < 0.01) and turnover intention (r = 0.449, P < 0.01), and negatively related to occupational commitment (r = − 0.364, P < 0.01). Emotional exhaustion was positively related to turnover intention (r = 0.518, P < 0.01), and negatively related to occupational commitment (r = − 0.495, P < 0.01). Occupational commitment was negatively related to turnover intention (r = − 0.586, P < 0.01).

Table 3 Mean, standard deviation, and correlation coefficient of variables (n = 953)
Full size table

Hypothesis testing

The results in Table 4 display that surface acting positively predicted turnover intention in the total effect (β = 0.481, P < 0.001), supporting Hypothesis 1. Surface acting positively predicted emotional exhaustion (β = 0.532, P < 0.001), supporting Hypothesis 2. Emotional exhaustion positively predicted turnover intention (β = 0.403, P < 0.001), supporting Hypothesis 3. The above analysis could support Hypothesis 4, and emotional exhaustion served as a partial mediating role because the direct effect of surface acting on turnover intention was statistically significant (β = 0.267, P < 0.001). Additionally, the method based on 5000 bootstrapped samples was adopted to further test the mediating effect, and the result was considered statistically significant (β = 0.214, P < 0.001), indicating that emotional exhaustion mediated the effect of surface acting on turnover intention, with Hypothesis 4 being supported again.

Table 4 Regression results for total, direct and indirect effects (n = 953)
Full size table

The result of the moderated mediation model is shown in Fig. 1. The interaction term (emotional exhaustion * occupational commitment) significantly predicted turnover intention (β = − 0.065, P < 0.01). Thus, occupational commitment moderated the effect of emotional exhaustion on turnover intention, as verified for H5. Figure 2 depicts the interaction plot for the relationship between emotional exhaustion and turnover intention under the condition of relatively low (mean − 1SD), moderate (mean), and relatively high (mean + 1SD) occupational commitment. As illustrated, the slope of the association between emotional exhaustion and turnover intention was steeper when the occupational commitment was low (simple slope = 0.288), while the slope was flatter when the occupational commitment was high (simple slope = 0.160). The association between emotional exhaustion and turnover intention was weaker when the occupational commitment was relatively high.

Fig. 1
figure 1

Statistical diagram of the moderated mediation model (n = 953). Covariates controlled (gender, age, marital status, and family yearly income) in the modeling analysis were found to be statistically insignificant, except for educational background which had a small positive influence on emotional exhaustion (β = 0.109, P = 0.041). 95% confidence intervals were in parentheses. **P < 0.01, ***P < 0.001

Full size image
Fig. 2
figure 2

Interaction plot under the different conditions of occupational commitment

Full size image

The bootstrapped method was used to test whether the indirect effect of surface acting on turnover intention through emotional exhaustion was moderated by occupational commitment, with the results shown in Table 5. The value of the index was − 0.035 (95% CI [− 0.058, − 0.010], not including 0, significant), indicating a significant conditional indirect effect of surface acting on turnover intention mediated by emotional exhaustion and moderated by occupational commitment, as verified for H6. The bootstrapped results also showed the indirect effect was conditional on different levels of occupational commitment: the indirect effect was stronger (β = 0.152, 95% CI = [0.102, 0.202]) when the occupational commitment was low, while the indirect effect was weaker (β = 0.083, 95% CI = [0.042, 0.124]) when the occupational commitment was high.

Table 5 Results of the moderated mediation model
Full size table

Discussion

The study aims to examine whether rural family doctors’ surface acting is associated with turnover intention through emotional exhaustion, and to further explore whether occupational commitment moderates this effect, and, more specifically, whether occupational commitment moderates the relationship between emotional exhaustion and turnover intention. The analysis results revealed that all the hypotheses were supported, in which emotional exhaustion partially mediated the effect of surface acting on turnover intention, and occupational commitment moderated the effect of emotional exhaustion on turnover intention and further moderated the mediating effect.

The study indicates that while surface acting is significantly and positively related to turnover intention, it has a stronger relationship with emotional exhaustion as a mediating factor. Deng, Wang et al. [52, 86] found a significant positive effect of surface acting on emotional exhaustion in a study with Chinese nurses. Kim’s meta-analysis with Korean nurses found that emotional exhaustion was an antecedent variable of turnover intention [56], and this finding was also confirmed by Gan’s study of factors influencing turnover intention among Chinese general practitioners [17]. Guo et al. [44] also indicated that surface acting was an antecedent variable of turnover intention. Moreover, Na [61] and He [32] verified the mediating role of emotional exhaustion between surface acting and turnover intention through Korean nurses and Chinese employees, respectively. These findings are consistent with ours, which indicated that “surface acting leads to emotional exhaustion, which in turn causes turnover intention”, and can be further validated by the idea of “loss cycle” in the COR theory, where surface acting is a potential threat to emotional resources and self-protective defensive mechanisms are motivated by continuous resource depletion. As family doctors are constantly required to perform emotional work and surface acting to provide better services for rural residents, they may experience a loss of resources and go through emotional exhaustion if their efforts are not rewarded as expected. Considering the lack of resources, rural family doctors protect and prioritize remaining resources and therefore may be prone to turnover.

Furthermore, the negative relationship between occupational commitment and emotional exhaustion with turnover intention has been well established in related studies, but the moderating role of occupational commitment in the process has not been fully explored [16, 62, 66]. In this study, occupational commitment has been found to have an important moderating role in the relationship between emotional exhaustion and turnover intention via literature review, theoretical derivation, and empirical validation. High levels of occupational commitment weaken the effect of emotional exhaustion on turnover intention among rural family doctors. When emotional exhaustion persists at work, rural family doctors with high occupational commitment are less likely to have turnover intention than those with low occupational commitment. In addition, rural family doctors with low occupational commitment may not be able to obtain or regain sufficient resources to weaken the adverse effects resulting from emotional exhaustion. Consistent with the resource investment principle of the COR theory, occupational commitment can promote rural family doctors to enhance and preserve their inner resources, minimize the depletion degree of their emotional resources and regain the expected resources. The study also confirms that occupational commitment moderates the mediating effect of surface acting on turnover intention via emotional exhaustion, and deepens our understanding of how occupational commitment weakens the adverse consequences of emotional exhaustion.

Theoretical implications

The first contribution of this study is the introduction of emotional labor strategies into the research on family doctors, which provides a more comprehensive understanding of the work characteristics of family doctors by making a breakthrough from existing perspectives that medical services require both mental and physical effort. Emotional labor is also an important form of labor for family doctors in their regular services. In this study, emotional dissonance theory is applied to explain the effect of surface acting on turnover intention. As family doctors’ inner feelings and emotional displays are not consistent when engaging in surface acting, they are prone to emotional dissonance, and, in order to banish this uncomfortable experience, they are more likely to have turnover intention.

The second theoretical contribution of this study is to clarify the mediating role of emotional exhaustion in the effect of surface acting on turnover intention using the COR theory and to further explore the moderating role of occupational commitment. Following the COR theory, the stressful circumstances associated with surface acting can deplete rural family doctors’ emotional resources, leading to emotional exhaustion. When emotional resources are consistently depleted, self-protective defensive mechanisms are motivated to encourage individuals to conserve and prioritize their remaining resources, thus halting investment and activating turnover intention. However, if resources are able to be replenished when rural family doctors experience emotional exhaustion, the effect of emotional exhaustion on turnover intention is weakened. Occupational commitment can provide rural family doctors with inner resources, such as self-efficacy and resilience.

Practical implications

Chau et al. [41] emphasized that individuals engaging in surface acting and experiencing emotional exhaustion may not necessarily be undesirable employees who have to be turnover. Rather, they are possibly excellent employees who are merely adopting a self-protecting strategy of turnover to prevent their remaining resources from being insufficient for appropriate emotional displays. Additionally, Chau et al. [41] further stated that surface acting affects turnover intention through the process of emotional exhaustion, which implies a period of evolution from surface acting to turnover intention, and organizations should take full advantage of this time to adopt targeted emotional labor interventions to minimize the adverse consequences of surface playing and emotional exhaustion, and retain excellent employees. Therefore, we propose the following practical implications.

Organizations can train family doctors to use various emotion management strategies in their healthcare delivery. Engagement strategies that direct the family doctors’ attention or efforts to cope with current emotions and challenges using reassessment and organizational support can be adopted. Diversion strategies that divert attention, such as avoidance, can also be used. It confirms that individuals being instructed to use engagement strategies respond with more positive emotions and better abilities to meet emotional demands [87]. It is recommended that priority be given to training family doctors with engagement strategies, and that family doctors actively use deep acting rather than surface acting to be empathetic with rural residents. If engagement strategies contribute to burnout for family doctors, a short-term diversion strategy can be used to minimize the use of surface acting. In addition, the publicity of the family doctor contract services system should be strengthened to increase rural residents’ familiarity with the services provided by family doctors, improve residents’ cooperation, and reduce the depletion of emotional resources caused by the frequent surface acting of family doctors.

The other aspect requires reinforcing the occupational commitment of family doctors, replenishing the resources needed for their work, and minimizing the possibility of emotional exhaustion and its adverse consequences. It is important to strengthen the pre-service education of family doctors to improve their enthusiasm and beliefs about what they are doing and to increase personal characteristic resources such as self-efficacy and resilience. At the same time, effort should also be made to provide external support for the work of family doctors, especially in rural areas. It is essential to accelerate the construction of a grassroots talent pool and increase investment in basic supplies, which can help replenish resources in time and avoid turnover intention when family doctors’ resources are depleted.

Limitations and future research

Despite the strengths of this study, there are some limitations. First, we did not incorporate individual differences and organizational factors into the hypothesized model. In the future, we could incorporate individual factors such as demographic information (e.g., gender, age), and psychological and personality traits into the study regarding the effect of surface acting on turnover intention. In addition, we could explore interventions to weaken the adverse effects of emotional exhaustion at the organizational level, such as organizational support and organizational identity. Second, the cross-sectional nature of this study means that it is impossible to demonstrate causal relationships among the variables. More importantly, the variables involved in the study, namely surface acting, emotional exhaustion, turnover intention, and occupational commitment, are of a dynamic and temporal nature and require a longitudinal study to better capture the information. Future studies could take advantage of techniques, such as the experience sampling method, to allow participants to repeat assessments at various points in time, in order to obtain a better understanding of the fluctuations in family doctors’ turnover intention and influencing factors. Third, the data were collected using a self-reporting approach, with social desirability effects due to observation bias being unavoidable. In future studies, we would consider designing questionnaires from multiple perspectives, including immediate leaders, team colleagues, and rural residents, to investigate family doctors’ turnover intention and influencing factors. Finally, the participants in this study were mainly from Shandong Province, an economically developed province in eastern China, and may not be representative of the current status of family doctors in all rural areas of China. In future studies, we could sample one province in central China and one province in western China to represent the economically moderate and underdeveloped provinces, respectively, in order to increase the generalizability of the findings to a larger population.

Conclusions

This study, conducted with family doctors in rural China, confirms that emotional exhaustion partially mediates the relationship between surface acting and turnover intention, and that occupational commitment moderates the direct effect of emotional exhaustion on turnover intention and further moderates the mediating effect. In light of the findings of this study, it is suggested that engagement and diversion strategies be used to respond to emotional labor demands and to reduce the practice of surface acting by family doctors. In addition, pre-service education and external resources should be provided to increase family doctors’ occupational commitment and minimize the incidence of emotional exhaustion and turnover intention.

Availability of data and materials

The datasets used and/or analyzed during the current study are available from the authors on reasonable request.

References

  1. Öcek ZA, Çiçeklioğlu M, Yücel U, Özdemir R. Family medicine model in Turkey: a qualitative assessment from the perspectives of primary care workers. BMC Fam Pract. 2014;15:38. https://doi.org/10.1186/1471-2296-15-38.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  2. Liu S, Liu Y, Zhang T, Wang L, Huang J, Liang H, et al. The developing family doctor system: evidence from the progress of the family doctor signing service from a longitudinal survey (2013–2016) in Pudong New Area, Shanghai. BMC Fam Pract. 2021;22:11. https://doi.org/10.1186/s12875-020-01353-0.

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  3. Schut FT, Varkevisser M. Competition policy for health care provision in the Netherlands. Health Policy. 2017;121:126–33. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.healthpol.2016.11.002.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  4. Abelsen B, Gaski M, Brandstorp H. Duration of general practitioner contracts. Tidsskr Nor Laegeforen. 2015;135:2045–9. https://doi.org/10.4045/tidsskr.15.0003.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  5. McGovern MP, Williams DJ, Hannaford PC, Taylor MW, Lefevre KE, Boroujerdi MA, et al. Introduction of a new incentive and target-based contract for family physicians in the UK: good for older patients with diabetes but less good for women? Diabet Med. 2008;25:1083–9. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1464-5491.2008.02544.x.

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  6. Yuan S, Wang F, Li X, Jia M, Tian M. Facilitators and barriers to implement the family doctor contracting services in China: findings from a qualitative study. BMJ Open. 2019;9: e32444. https://doi.org/10.1136/bmjopen-2019-032444.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  7. Li Z, Li J, Fu P, Chen Y, Jing Z, Yuan Y, et al. Family doctor contract services and health-related quality of life among patients with chronic diseases in rural China: what is the role of socioeconomic status? Int J Equity Health. 2021;20:191. https://doi.org/10.1186/s12939-021-01530-2.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  8. The State Council Medical Reform Office, et al. Notice on the issuance of guidance on promoting family doctor contract services. http://www.gov.cn/gongbao/content/2016/content_5124373.htm. Accessed 13 Oct 2022.

  9. Shandong Provincial Health Committee on the Issuance of Shandong Province. Family doctor contract services work guidelines (pilot version). http://wsjkw.shandong.gov.cn/zwgk/fdzdgknr/tzwj/201711/t20171120_3444549.html. Accessed 13 Oct 2022.

  10. Xu X, Zhou L, Asante-Antwi H, Boafo-Arthur A, Mustafa T. Reconstructing family doctors’ psychological well-being and motivation for effective performance in China: the intervening role of psychological capital. BMC Fam Pract. 2020;21:137. https://doi.org/10.1186/s12875-020-01182-1.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  11. The promotion law of the People’s Republic of China on rural revitalization. http://www.npc.gov.cn/npc/c30834/202104/8777a961929c4757935ed2826ba967fd.shtml. Accessed 17 Oct 2022.

  12. Seventh National Census Bulletin (No. 7). http://www.stats.gov.cn/tjsj/tjgb/rkpcgb/qgrkpcgb/202106/t20210628_1818826.html. Accessed Oct 2022.

  13. Li J, Li J, Fu P, Chen Y, Tang X, Li Z, et al. Willingness of patients with chronic disease in rural China to contract with family doctors: implication for targeting characteristics. BMC Fam Pract. 2021;22:203. https://doi.org/10.1186/s12875-021-01553-2.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  14. Zhang X, Bian L, Bai X, Kong D, Liu L, Chen Q, et al. The influence of job satisfaction, resilience and work engagement on turnover intention among village doctors in China: a cross-sectional study. BMC Health Serv Res. 2020;20:283. https://doi.org/10.1186/s12913-020-05154-0.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  15. Fu P, Wang Y, Liu S, Li J, Gao Q, Zhou C, et al. Analysing the preferences for family doctor contract services in rural China: a study using a discrete choice experiment. BMC Fam Pract. 2020;21:148. https://doi.org/10.1186/s12875-020-01223-9.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  16. Chang CS, Du PL, Huang IC. Nurses’ perceptions of severe acute respiratory syndrome: relationship between commitment and intention to leave nursing. J Adv Nurs. 2006;54:171–9. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1365-2648.2006.03796.x.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  17. Gan Y, Gong Y, Chen Y, Cao S, Li L, Zhou Y, et al. Turnover intention and related factors among general practitioners in Hubei, China: a cross-sectional study. BMC Fam Pract. 2018;19:74. https://doi.org/10.1186/s12875-018-0752-3.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  18. Hom PW, Kinicki AJ. Toward a greater understanding of how dissatisfaction drives employee turnover. Acad Manag J. 2001;44:975–87.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  19. Zhang T, Feng J, Jiang H, Shen X, Pu B, Gan Y. Association of professional identity, job satisfaction and burnout with turnover intention among general practitioners in China: evidence from a national survey. BMC Health Serv Res. 2021;21:382. https://doi.org/10.1186/s12913-021-06322-6.

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  20. Gan Y, Jiang H, Li L, Yang Y, Wang C, Liu J, et al. A national survey of turnover intention among general practitioners in China. Int J Health Plan Manag. 2020;35:482–93. https://doi.org/10.1002/hpm.2921.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  21. Li SQ, Zhou Y, Zhan X. Turnover intention of family doctors and its influence factors. Educ Teach Forum. 2020;114–115.

  22. Shen X, Jiang H, Xu H, Ye J, Lv C, Lu Z, et al. The global prevalence of turnover intention among general practitioners: a systematic review and meta-analysis. BMC Fam Pract. 2020;21:246. https://doi.org/10.1186/s12875-020-01309-4.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  23. Yang S, Li J, Fu P, Chen Y, Wang Y, Zhao D, et al. Do older people with cardiovascular-metabolic multimorbidity prefer to sign contracts for family doctor services? Evidence from a cross-sectional study in rural Shandong, China. BMC Geriatr. 2021;21:579. https://doi.org/10.1186/s12877-021-02543-w.

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  24. Mobley W, Griffeth RW, Hand HH, Meglino BM. Review and conceptual analysis of the employee turnover process. Psychol Bull. 1979;86:493–522.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  25. Chen Z, Zhou L, Lv H, Sun K, Guo H, Hu J, et al. Effect of healthcare system reforms on job satisfaction among village clinic doctors in China. Hum Resour Health. 2021;19:109. https://doi.org/10.1186/s12960-021-00650-8.

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  26. Hu LP, Ma CY, Guo ML, Ren J, He C, Ma H. Investigation and research on the status quo of family doctor assistant system in a district of Beijing. China Health Law. 2021;29:128–31. https://doi.org/10.19752/j.cnki.1004-6607.2021.05.027.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  27. Wen T, Zhang Y, Wang X, Tang G. Factors influencing turnover intention among primary care doctors: a cross-sectional study in Chongqing, China. Hum Resour Health. 2018;16:10. https://doi.org/10.1186/s12960-018-0274-z.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  28. Fernet C, Gillet N, Austin S, Trépanier SG, Drouin-Rousseau S. Predicting nurses’ occupational commitment and turnover intention: the role of autonomous motivation and supervisor and coworker behaviours. J Nurs Manag. 2021;29:2611–9. https://doi.org/10.1111/jonm.13433.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  29. Hobfoll SE. Conservation of resources. A new attempt at conceptualizing stress. Am Psychol. 1989;44:513–24. https://doi.org/10.1037//0003-066x.44.3.513.

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  30. Hobfoll SE, Halbesleben J, Neveu JP, Westman M. Conservation of resources in the organizational context: the reality of resources and their consequences. Annu Rev Organ Psych Organ Behav. 2018;5:103–28.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  31. Lee H, An S, Lim GY, Sohn YW. Ethical leadership and followers’ emotional exhaustion: exploring the roles of three types of emotional labor toward leaders in South Korea. Int J Environ Res Public Health. 2021;18:10862. https://doi.org/10.3390/ijerph182010862.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  32. He JH, Zuo L, Chang LJ. Surface acting, emotional exhaustion and turnover intentions: the mediating effect of emotional exhaustion and the moderating effect of organizational support. J Bus Econ. 2020;7:49–58. https://doi.org/10.14134/j.cnki.cn33-1336/f.2020.07.005.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  33. Vinson AH, Underman K. Clinical empathy as emotional labor in medical work. Soc Sci Med. 2020;251: 112904. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.socscimed.2020.112904.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  34. Hochschild AR. The managed heart: commercialization of human feeling. Berkeley: University of California Press; 1983.

    Google Scholar 

  35. Diefendorff JM, Croyle MH, Gosserand RH. The dimensionality and antecedents of emotional labor strategies. J Vocat Behav. 2005;66:339–57.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  36. Grandey AA. When “the show must go on”: surface acting and deep acting as determinants of emotional exhaustion and peer-rated service delivery. Acad Manag J. 2003;46:86–96.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  37. Li ML, Zhang F, Zhang JL, Sun JJ, Liang MY. Effect of contracted family doctors on heath literacy of rural residents in Henan Province. Chin J Med Libr Inf Sci. 2021;30:59–64.

    Google Scholar 

  38. Zhou JJ, Peng YC, Lyu LD. Analysis on the trust dilemma and countermeasures of the contract service from the perspective of family doctors. Chin Med Ethics. 2019;32:887–92.

    Google Scholar 

  39. Ma TJ. Study on the relationship between the trust degree of primary medical staff to patients and the quality of health service. Changchun: Jilin University; 2020.

    Google Scholar 

  40. Larson EB, Yao X. Clinical empathy as emotional labor in the patient-physician relationship. JAMA. 2005;293:1100–6. https://doi.org/10.1001/jama.293.9.1100.

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  41. Chau SL, Dahling JJ, Levy PE, Diefendorf FJM. A predictive study of emotional labor and turnover. J Organ Behav. 2009;30:1151–63.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  42. Grandey AA. Emotion regulation in the workplace: a new way to conceptualize emotional labor. J Occup Health Psychol. 2000;5:95–110.

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  43. Rubin RS, Tardino VM, Daus CC, Munz DC. A reconceptualization of the emotional labor construct: on the development of an integrated theory of perceived emotional dissonance and emotional labor. Mahwah: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates Publishers; 2005.

    Google Scholar 

  44. Gou L, Ma S, Wang G, Wen X, Zhang Y. Relationship between workplace ostracism and turnover intention among nurses: the sequential mediating effects of emotional labor and nurse-patient relationship. Psychol Health Med. 2021;27:1–6. https://doi.org/10.1080/13548506.2021.1905859.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  45. Theodosius C, Koulouglioti C, Kersten P, Rosten C. Collegial surface acting emotional labour, burnout and intention to leave in novice and pre-retirement nurses in the United Kingdom: a cross-sectional study. Nurs Open. 2021;8:463–72. https://doi.org/10.1002/nop2.649.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  46. Wright TA, Cropanzano R. Emotional exhaustion as a predictor of job performance and voluntary turnover. J Appl Psychol. 1998;83:486–93.

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  47. Hobfoll SE. The influence of culture, community, and the nested-self in the stress process: advancing conservation of resources theory. Appl Psychol. 2001;50:337–421.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  48. Chen H, Eyoun K. Do mindfulness and perceived organizational support work? Fear of COVID-19 on restaurant frontline employees’ job insecurity and emotional exhaustion. Int J Hosp Manag. 2021;94: 102850. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijhm.2020.102850.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  49. Yigit AO, Ay FA. The effect of emotional labor and impression management on burnout: example of family physicians. Pak J Med Sci. 2019;35:793–6. https://doi.org/10.12669/pjms.35.3.4.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  50. Rathi N, Bhatnagar D, Mishra SK. Effect of emotional labor on emotional exhaustion and work attitudes among hospitality employees in India. J Hum Resour Hosp Tour. 2013;12:273–90.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  51. Zhang H, Zhou ZE, Zhan Y, Liu C, Zhang L. Surface acting, emotional exhaustion, and employee sabotage to customers: moderating roles of quality of social exchanges. Front Psychol. 2018;9:2197. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2018.02197.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  52. Deng H, Wu H, Qi X, Jin C, Li J. Stress reactivity influences the relationship between emotional labor strategies and job burnouts among Chinese hospital nurses. Neural Plast. 2020;2020:8837024. https://doi.org/10.1155/2020/8837024.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  53. Zhao X, Fu N, Freeney Y, Flood PC. Revisiting the effect of emotional labor: a multi-level investigation in front-line service teams. Front Psychol. 2020;11: 570048. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2020.570048.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  54. Shin Y, Hur WM, Park K, Hwang H. How managers’ job crafting reduces turnover intention: the mediating roles of role ambiguity and emotional exhaustion. Int J Environ Res Public Health. 2020;17:3972. https://doi.org/10.3390/ijerph17113972.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  55. Feng J, Shen X, Gan Y. Turnover intention and its influencing factors among general practitioners in the Eastern, Central and Western China. Chin J Public Health. 2021;37:1635–40.

    Google Scholar 

  56. Kim H, Kim EG. A meta-analysis on predictors of turnover intention of hospital nurses in South Korea (2000–2020). Nurs Open. 2021;8:2406–18. https://doi.org/10.1002/nop2.872.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  57. Shah S, Haider A, Jindong J, Mumtaz A, Rafiq N. The impact of job stress and state anger on turnover intention among nurses during COVID-19: the mediating role of emotional exhaustion. Front Psychol. 2021;12: 810378. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2021.810378.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  58. Zhou XR, Deng J, Peng MH. Research on the current situation and countermeasures of family doctors’ contract service in rural areas. Health Econ Res. 2018;25:52–5. https://doi.org/10.14055/j.cnki.33-1056/f.20180404.006.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  59. Bauwens R, Denissen M, Van Beurden J, Coun M. Can leaders prevent technology from backfiring? Empowering leadership as a double-edged sword for technostress in care. Front Psychol. 2021;12: 702648. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2021.702648.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  60. Lee YH, Lee S, Chung JY. Research on how emotional expressions of emotional labor workers and perception of customer feedbacks affect turnover intentions: emphasis on moderating effects of emotional intelligence. Front Psychol. 2018;9:2526. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2018.02526.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  61. Na SY, Park H. The effect of nurse’s emotional labor on turnover intention: mediation effect of burnout and moderated mediation effect of authentic leadership. J Korean Acad Nurs. 2019;49:286–97. https://doi.org/10.4040/jkan.2019.49.3.286.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  62. Lee K, Carswell JJ, Allen NJ. A meta-analytic review of occupational commitment: relations with person- and work-related variables. J Appl Psychol. 2000;85:799–811. https://doi.org/10.1037/0021-9010.85.5.799.

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  63. Lowrey W. Socialization as a determinant of occupational commitment: do high school and college activities matter? In: The annual conference of the association for education in journalism and mass communication, Washington D.C.; 2001. p. 1–18.

  64. Huang DM, Yin WQ. A model of occupational commitment for Chinese physicians: a social exchange perspective. Beijing: China Social Science Press; 2014.

    Google Scholar 

  65. London M. Toward a theory of career motivation. Acad Manag Rev. 1983;8:620–30.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  66. Wang XX, Zhang JF. Review of foreign and domestic studies on career commitment. Adv Psychol Sci. 2007;15:488–97.

    Google Scholar 

  67. Bao Y, Zhong W. How stress hinders health among Chinese public sector employees: the mediating role of emotional exhaustion and the moderating role of perceived organizational support. Int J Environ Res Public Health. 2019;16:4408. https://doi.org/10.3390/ijerph16224408.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  68. London M. Relationships between career motivation, empowerment and support for career development. J Occup Organ Psychol. 1993;66:55–69.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  69. Knudsen HK, Roman PM, Abraham AJ. Quality of clinical supervision and counselor emotional exhaustion: the potential mediating roles of organizational and occupational commitment. J Subst Abuse Treat. 2013;44:528–33. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jsat.2012.12.003.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  70. Bock D, Harms U, Mahler D. Examining the dimensionality of pre-service teachers’ enthusiasm for teaching by combining frameworks of educational science and organizational psychology. PLoS ONE. 2021;16: e259888. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0259888.

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  71. Raiziene S, Endriulaitiene A. The relations among empathy, occupational commitment, and emotional exhaustion of nurses. Medicina (Kaunas). 2007;43:425–31.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  72. 2021 Shandong province national economic and social development statistics bulletin. http://tjj.shandong.gov.cn/art/2022/3/2/art_6196_10294366.html. Accessed 19 Oct 2022.

  73. Wu PJ. Antecedents and consequences of emotional labor of the front-line service employees: based on the examples of the bank clerks. Taipei City: National Chengchi University; 2003.

    Google Scholar 

  74. Qian GY, Guo Q, Li Y, Yu Y, Jiang S. The effect of emotional intelligence on the doctor-patient relationship: the mediating effect of emotional labor. Med Philos. 2019;40:66–70.

    Google Scholar 

  75. Yuan WW, Yang HJ, Li GZ, Man LB. Study on the interaction of emotional labor, job satisfaction and doctor-patient relationship among medical staff. Chin Hosp. 2021;25:43–5. https://doi.org/10.19660/j.issn.1671-0592.2021.2.14.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  76. Li CP, Shi K. The influence of distributive justice and procedural justice on job burnout. Xin Li Xue Bao. 2003;35:677–84.

    Google Scholar 

  77. Maslach C, Jackson SE, Leiter MP. Maslach burnout inventory manual. 3rd ed. Palo Alto: Consulting Psychologists Press; 1996.

    Google Scholar 

  78. Li XL, Wang DY, Xie FZ, Shi Y, Wang JH, Sun T, et al. Impact and mechanism of workplace ostracism on emotional exhaustion and job satisfaction of nurses in the public hospital. Chin Hosp Manag. 2017;37:73–4.

    Google Scholar 

  79. Zhang X, Liu WN, Zhu BH. Current situation and influencing factors of general practitioners’ job burnout in primary medical institutions. Chin J Med Manag Sci. 2020;10:26–31.

    Google Scholar 

  80. Sui K, Yin WQ, Huang DM, Yu QQ, Zhao YK, Li YW. The effect of income on occupation mentality of rural doctors under the situation of new medical reform. Chin Health Serv Manag. 2016;33:371–3.

    Google Scholar 

  81. Yu QQ, Yin WQ, Huang DM, Sui K, Chen ZM, Tang CH. Effects of organizational justice on turnover intention, work performance among village doctors in Shandong province. Chin J Public Health. 2018;34:725–8.

    Google Scholar 

  82. Alavi M, Visentin DC, Thapa DK, Hunt GE, Watson R, Cleary M. Chi-square for model fit in confirmatory factor analysis. J Adv Nurs. 2020;76:2209–11. https://doi.org/10.1111/jan.14399.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  83. Ding C, Wang T, Chen X, Li J, Wang W, Huang D, et al. Association of adverse childhood experience and attention deficit hyperactivity disorder with depressive symptoms among men who have sex with men in China: moderated mediation effect of resilience. BMC Public Health. 2019;19:1706–15. https://doi.org/10.1186/s12889-019-8016-2.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  84. Heiss S, Timko CA, Hormes JM. Confirmatory factor analysis of the EDE-Q in vegans and omnivores: support for the brief three factor model. Eat Behav. 2020;39: 101447. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.eatbeh.2020.101447.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  85. Tang DD, Wen ZL. Statistical approaches for testing common method bias: problems and suggestions. J Psychol Sci. 2020;43:215–23.

    Google Scholar 

  86. Wang L. The research on nurses’ emotional labor and its related factors in Changsha. Changsha: Central South University; 2010.

    Google Scholar 

  87. Parkinson B, Totterdell P. Classifying affect-regulation strategies. Cogn Emot. 1999;13:277–303.

    Article  Google Scholar 

Download references

Acknowledgements

We owe a special debt of gratitude to all the professors and editors in Human Resources for Health, whose hard work benefited us a lot and academically reviewed the paper.

Funding

This study was funded by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant Number: 71804131), “Youth Innovation and Technology Program” Project of Colleges and Universities in Shandong Province (Grant Number: 2020RWG014), the Humanities and Social Science Foundation of the Ministry of Education of China (Grant Number: 22YJAZH137), and the Key Research and Development Program of Shandong Province (Soft Science Project) (Grant Number: 2022RKY07002).

Author information

Author notes

  1. Anqi Wang and Changhai Tang contributed equally and are co-first authors of the article

  2. Zhongming Chen and Wenqiang Yin contributed equally to this work

Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Public Health, Weifang Medical University, Weifang, China

    Anqi Wang

  2. School of Public Affairs, Zhejiang University, Hangzhou, China

    Changhai Tang

  3. School of Business, NingboTech University, Ningbo, China

    Changhai Tang

  4. School of Management, Weifang Medical University, Weifang, China

    Lifang Zhou, Haiyuan Lv, Jia Song, Zhongming Chen & Wenqiang Yin

Authors
  1. Anqi Wang
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  2. Changhai Tang
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  3. Lifang Zhou
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  4. Haiyuan Lv
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  5. Jia Song
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  6. Zhongming Chen
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  7. Wenqiang Yin
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Contributions

AW, CT, LZ, HL, and JS were responsible for the conception and design. AW and CT were responsible for evaluating and analyzing data. AW, CT, LZ, HL, and JS were responsible for drafting the manuscript, reviewing, and editing the paper. ZC and WY critically reviewed and commented on the draft paper. AW and CT contributed equally to this work. All authors read and approved the final manuscript.

Corresponding authors

Correspondence to Zhongming Chen or Wenqiang Yin.

Ethics declarations

Ethics approval and consent to participate

No ethical approval is required for this study. All participants read a statement that explained the purpose of the survey. Written informed consent was obtained from all participants in this study.

Consent for publication

Not applicable.

Competing interests

The authors declare that they have no competing interests.

Additional information

Publisher's Note

Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.

Rights and permissions

Open Access This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article's Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article's Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/. The Creative Commons Public Domain Dedication waiver (http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/) applies to the data made available in this article, unless otherwise stated in a credit line to the data.

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Check for updates. Verify currency and authenticity via CrossMark

Cite this article

Wang, A., Tang, C., Zhou, L. et al. How surface acting affects turnover intention among family doctors in rural China: the mediating role of emotional exhaustion and the moderating role of occupational commitment. Hum Resour Health 21, 3 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1186/s12960-023-00791-y

Download citation

  • Received:

  • Accepted:

  • Published:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1186/s12960-023-00791-y

Keywords

Human Resources for Health

ISSN: 1478-4491