The Mediating Role of Moral Disengagement in Prediction of Deviant Workplace Behaviour Among Nurses in Malaysia

Background: Nowadays, medical environment is becoming increasingly competitive in order to meet the patients' expectations and demands. Despite their efforts to provide the best services, nurses often receive complaints from people who are dissatisfied with the services they receive. There are reports claiming nurses as violent and unethical in their duties. This leads to constant stress among nurses, which translates into trait anger and negative affect. The present work aimed to examine the influence of trait anger and negative affectivity on deviant workplace behaviour with the mediating role of moral disengagement. Methods: This cross-sectional correlational study was conducted in the general hospitals of northern, southern, east coast and central regions of Malaysia in January to June 2020. The study sample included 387 staff nurses who were recruited by proportionate stratified random sampling. The data were collected by Negative Affect Scale, Deviant Workplace Behavior Scale, Trait Anger Scale, and Moral Disengagement Scale and analysed using Partial Least Squares Path Modelling (PLS-PM) with SMART PLS 3.2.8 version. Results: The results of the PLS-PM suggested that trait anger has an impact on the occurrence of deviant workplace behaviour (β = 0.245, p-value=0.001). Also, this study discovered that moral disengagement mediates the relationship between trait anger, negative affectivity, and deviant workplace behaviour among nurses. Conclusion: This study enriches the body of knowledge on deviant workplace behaviour in healthcare setting, specifically Malaysia's public healthcare industry. Looking into the future, similar studies should be performed in private hospitals to improve the generalisability of the findings.