Using team dynamics and team cognition to equip the psychological wellbeing of clinical team workforce managing pandemics and chronic diseases in Ghana

Teamwork among healthcare workers during pandemics is a complex, dynamic system characterized by its emergent cognitive properties. This study uses Belbin’s team role and Seligman’s PERMA theories to examine how team dynamics and cognition can improve healthcare team workers’ psychological wellbeing during pandemics and chronic diseases management. Team dynamics and team cognition have been studied independently, but their effects on the workforce managing pandemics and chronic diseases in Ghana have not. The study included selected district hospitals in pandemics and chronic diseases management teams using quantitative analysis for association study with SPSS© v20. The results from the 233 sampled respondents demonstrated that team dynamics and team cognition significantly affected teammates’ psychological wellbeing during pandemics and chronic illnesses. Team dynamics significantly and negatively affect psychological wellbeing. Team cognition, team leadership, and situation monitoring positively influenced psychological wellbeing. Team function, mutual support, and communication all negatively affect the psychological wellbeing of team-based clinicians. Clinical teams with functional leadership, situational monitoring, and cognition are psychologically equipped to manage pandemics and chronic diseases. The study contributes to organizational management, positive psychology, and cognitive science and helps prepare teams and teammates to fight and manage pandemics and chronic diseases in Ghana. By applying Belbin’s team role and Seligman’s PERMA theories in the high-stress context of pandemics and chronic diseases management, the study extends the theories’ applicability beyond routine organizational settings to high-pressure, crisis-driven healthcare environments, thereby providing a novelty in scholarship and practice with the Ghanaian healthcare crisis management context.