Somaye Zarei Fathabadi, Maryam Khosravizad, Maryam Damarchiloo, Masumeh Damatlu Abhari,
Volume 14, Issue 2 (6-2026)
Background and Objective: Hospital environments, due to the nature of their services, are considered among the most stressful work environments, which pose a serious challenge to the mental health of employees. This study was conducted with the aim of designing and testing a structural model of psychological well-being among the clinical and administrative staff of Milad Hospital in Tehran. Given the study's focus on a specialized medical center, the results are more generalizable to similar hospital environments, and caution should be exercised in generalizing them to other sectors of the healthcare system.
Methods: This study employed a mixed-methods (sequential exploratory) approach. In the qualitative phase, using interpretive phenomenology and 16 in-depth interviews with experts, the main goal of this study was to examine the impact of living environments, analyzed using MAXQDA 2020. In the quantitative phase, based on the qualitative findings, a 30-item questionnaire was developed and distributed among 300 hospital employees. Data analysis and fitting of the final model were performed using Covariance-Based Structural Equation Modeling (CB-SEM) in LISREL 8.8 software.
Results: In the qualitative phase of the study, three main themes—personality traits, psychological capital, and job stress—were identified, along with a total of 30 sub-themes. The results of the quantitative model testing indicated that the conceptual model demonstrated a good fit (χ²/df = 2.36, CFI = 0.93, RMSEA = 0.063). The findings confirmed that psychological capital (β = 0.48) and personality traits (β = 0.41) had positive and significant effects, while job stress (β = -0.33) had a negative and significant effect on psychological well-being (p < 0.001).
Conclusion: The results of this study emphasize the necessity of moving from approaches merely based on efficiency and performance control (tool-based management) toward human-centered approaches in healthcare human resource management.
