Longitudinal association between cumulative work risks and suicidal ideation among Chinese employees during the COVID-19 pandemic: a moderated mediation model

As a global public health event, the COVID-19 pandemic has profoundly affected companies and businesses. Accordingly, employees' psychological adjustment also merits attention. This aim of this study is to determine whether employees' cumulative work risk has indirectly increased their suicidal ideation through ego depletion during the COVID-19 pandemic and whether this mediation effect has been moderated by employees' proactive personality. A total of 893 employees were recruited from 34 enterprises in Fujian, Henan, Guangdong and Shandong provinces. All participants completed two waves of questionnaires. Our results thus indicate that (1) cumulative work risk is significantly positively correlated with employees' suicidal ideation; (2) ego depletion mediates the relationship between cumulative work risk and employees' suicidal ideation; and (3) both the direct effect of cumulative work risk on suicidal ideation and the indirect effect of affect ego depletion are moderated by proactive personality. These two effects on employees with a high level of proactive personality are weaker. Our results therefore contribute to a better understanding of the effects of cumulative work risk and employees' suicidal ideation during the COVID-19 pandemic.