Tehran University of Medical Sciences Iranian Journal of Public Health 2251-6085 47 5 2018 05 13 698 705 Rui HAN Institute of Ideological & Political Education, School of Marxism, Xi’an Jiaotong University, Xi’an, China Lin WEI Institute of Ideological & Political Education, School of Marxism, Xi’an Jiaotong University, Xi’an, China Jingping LI Dept. of Political Science, Xi’an Jiaotong University, Xi’an, China Ding ZHANG Dept. of Hematology, Shaanxi People’s Hospital, Xi’an, China Hongliang LI Second Affiliated Hospital, Xi’an Jiaotong University, Xi’an, China 2018 05 13 2018 05 13 Background: The aim of this study was to investigate OCB among physicians in China and explore whether their job satisfaction mediates the association between doctor-patient relationship (DPR) and organizational citizenship behavior (OCB). Methods: This cross-sectional, questionnaire-based survey was conducted among 1400 physicians in Shaanxi, China in 2014. The subjects were selected using a multi-stage cluster sampling methodology. The self-administered questionnaires included OCB Scale, DDPRQ, and PJSQ. Hierarchical linear regression analysis was used to estimate the effects of job satisfaction on the association between DPR and OCB. Results: DPR negatively predicted four dimensions of OCB, including conscientiousness, sportsmanship, civic virtue, and altruism. DPR was negatively related to five job satisfaction dimensions, namely work satisfaction (WS), promotion satisfaction (PS), reward satisfaction (RS), supervision satisfaction (SS), and environment satisfaction (ES). WS was positively correlated with conscientiousness and civic virtue; PS and SS were positively related to all four OCB dimensions; RS was positively related with civic virtue and altruism, and ES was positively correlated with conscientiousness and civic virtue. WS and PS partially mediated the association between DPR and conscientiousness; PS and SS partially mediated the relation between DPR and sportsmanship; PS, SS, and ES mediated the association between DPR and civic virtue; and PS, RS and SS partially mediated the relation between DPR and altruism. Conclusion: Job satisfaction mediated the association between DPR and OCB among Chinese physicians. The poor DPR possibly reduce physicians’ job satisfaction, thereby causing a decline of OCB in hospitals. Therefore, DPR improvement and job satisfaction have a great potential to promote physicians’ job performance in China.     https://ijph.tums.ac.ir/index.php/ijph/article/view/13352 https://ijph.tums.ac.ir/index.php/ijph/article/download/13352/5977