Relationships between perceived organizational support, psychological capital and depressive symptoms in Chinese doctors

Objective To explore the relationship between perceived organizational support and depressive symptoms and the mediating role of psychological capital in the relationship.Methods Stratified cluster sampling method was used to investigate doctors from six large general hospitals in Liaoning province.SPSS 17.0 and Amos 7.0 statistical software were applied to perform statistical analyses and to test study hypotheses.Results Perceived organizational support was inversely associated with depressive symptoms( β=-0.35,P<0.05)and explained 12.0% of variance of depressive symptoms.After adding psychological capital in the equation,the absolute value of regression coefficient decreased( β=-0.21,P<0.05)and psychological capital was negatively associated with depressive symptoms,which indicated that psychological capital played a mediating role.The final fitting indicators of structured equation model were:root mean square error of approximation(RMSEA)=0.05,comparative fit index(CFI)=0.91,Tucker-Lewis index(TLI)=0.90,incremental fit index(IFI)=0.91,χ²/df=3.64.The direct and indirect effect indices of perceived organizational support on depressive symptoms were-0.15 and-0.11,respectively.Conclusion Psychological capital plays a mediating role in the relationship between perceived organizational support and depressive symptoms.Perceived organizational support affects depressive symptoms in both direct and indirect ways.