Making it safe: linking healthcare workers' social media use to task performance during public health crises

Purpose This study aims to investigate the effect of social media use on healthcare workers’ psychological safety and task performance and the moderating role of perceived respect from patients during public health crises. Design/methodology/approach To test the proposed moderated mediation model, a survey was conducted in 12 Chinese medical institutions. A total of 637 valid questionnaires were collected for data analysis. Findings The results revealed that psychological safety mediated the relationships between task-related social media (TSM) use and social-related social media (SSM) use and task performance. In addition, perceived respect from patients moderated the relationship between TSM use and psychological safety, as well as the indirect relationship between TSM use and task performance through psychological safety. Originality/value This study sheds new light on understanding how different types of social media use influence task performance in the context of public health crises. Furthermore, this study considers the interactions of healthcare workers with colleagues and patients and examines the potential synergistic effects of these interactions on healthcare workers’ psychological state and task performance.