Emotional Labor and Performance in the Field of Child Life: Initial Model Exploration and Implications for Practice

Abstract

The need to suppress emotion and sustain outward expressions in pediatric health care facilities can be overwhelming for employees, leading to low job performance and high turnover. This is particularly true within the field of child life. Notwithstanding, retention and performance of health care professionals have emerged as national agenda items, and hospital administrators are routinely asked to increase performance, reduce turnover, and increase patient-care quality. Although human health care professionals are asked to support these initiatives, few evidence-based models are available to guide intervention. This correlational study (N = 241) examined links among organizational-level climate variables, turnover-related attitudes, and emotional labor in the field of child life. Hypotheses were tested through correlational and hierarchical regression analytic procedures. Contributions to practice and recommendations for future research are discussed.