The Impact of Self-Efficacy and Work Engagement on Healthcare Professionals’ Proactive Behavior

Job crafting (JC) is a form of proactive behavior and refers to the initiatives employees that could take to change their tasks or other job characteristics to achieve the best person-job fit. JC consists of six dimensions: seeking structural and social job resources, as well as challenges, hindering job demands, optimizing job demands, and delegating tasks. The aim of the present study was to explore the impact of self-efficacy and work engagement on healthcare professionals’ (HP) proactive behavior. A convenience sample of 295 HP working in Primary and Secondary healthcare structures of Northern Greece completed a questionnaire that included: 1) demographic/occupational characteristics, 2) the Job Crafting Scale, 3) the Generalized Self-Efficacy Scale (GSE) and 4) the Utrecht Work Engagement Scale (UWES). Increased age was found to be associated with decreased levels of seeking social job resources (p < 0.01). Education level was positively associated with increased levels of seeking structural job resources (p < 0.01), seeking challenges (p < 0.05), and optimizing job demands (p < 0.05), while job position was found to be negatively related to delegating tasks (p < 0.01). Self-efficacy was positively associated with increased levels of seeking structural resources (p < 0.001), challenges (p < 0.001), and increased levels of optimizing job demands (p < 0.001), while it was positively associated with decreased levels of delegating tasks (p < 0.05). In addition, increased work engagement was found to be associated with increased levels of seeking social job resources (p < 0.05), challenges (p < 0.01), and optimizing job demands (p < 0.01). Findings highlight the importance of self-efficacy, work engagement and individual characteristics in the realization of a resourceful work environment and HP’ adjustment in the organization. Thus, interventions that promote HP’ JC proactive behaviors should be encouraged.