Annie Hogh

Coping with bullying in the workplace

The purpose of the study was to investigate the 1-year prevalence of bullying in the form of repeated exposure to slander and/or nasty teasing in Danish workplaces, and to analyse whether respondents subjected to bullying use the same coping strategies as respondents who are not subjected to bullying. The results show that approximately 2% of the Danish employees are subjected to bullying at work. We compared the use of coping strategies in three groups: a non-exposed group, a somewhat exposed group, and a very exposed group (i.e., bullied). The results showed no linear association between the three groups, but a difference between being exposed and not exposed. The results seem to indicate that it is not necessarily the quantity of the negative acts that cause the change in behaviour but more the fact of being exposed to such acts.

Prevalence of workplace bullying and risk groups: a representative population study.

ObjectivesTo estimate the prevalence of bullying and to identify risk groups in a representative population sample.MethodsThe data for this study was taken from the second Danish Psychosocial Work Environment Study (DPWES). The sample consisted of 3,429 employees between 20 and 59-years. The response rate for the study was 60.4%.ResultsThe study showed that 8.3% of the respondents had been bullied within the past year, 1.6% of the sample reported daily to weekly bullying. Co-workers (71.5%) and managers/supervisors (32.4%) were most often reported as perpetrators of bullying, but bullying from subordinates (6%) was also reported. We found significant differences in the prevalence of bullying for both occupational status and work process, a variable characterizing the employees main task in their job. Unskilled workers reported the highest prevalence of bullying, while managers/supervisors the lowest prevalence. People working with things (male-dominated occupations) and people working with clients/patients (female-dominated occupations) reported higher prevalence of bullying than people working with symbols or customers. No significant gender or age differences were found.ConclusionsThese findings suggest that types of work and gender ratio are risk factors in the onset of workplace bullying. Future studies should take into account the type of work and the gender ratio of the organization.

Bullying and employee turnover among healthcare workers: a three-wave prospective study.

AIM To investigate the risk of turnover among targets of bullying at work. BACKGROUND Exposure to bullying seems to leave targets with intentions to leave their workplaces. However, it is uncertain to what extent they actually leave. METHOD Data were collected by questionnaires in a three-wave study among Danish healthcare workers at the time of graduation (T₁ ), 1 (T₂ ) and 2 years (T₃ ) later. We followed 2154 respondents who participated in all three waves. RESULTS The first year after graduation, 9.2% reported being bullied at work, 1.8% frequently. Follow-up analyses showed a strong relationship between exposure to bullying at T₂ and turnover at T₃ [odds ratio (OR) for frequently bullied = 3.1]. The inclusion of push factors such as low social support and low sense of community, intention to leave and ill health did not change the relation between bullying and turnover significantly. Three reasons for quitting stood out among reasons given by the bullied respondents: poor leadership, being exposed to negative behaviour and health problems. CONCLUSION Bullying may be costly to an organization in terms of staff turnover and subsequent recruitment and training of replacements. IMPACT FOR NURSING MANAGEMENT: Managers should regularly monitor the psychosocial work environment. To prevent bullying local policies and procedures should be developed, implemented and evaluated.

One-year prospective study on the effect of workplace bullying on long-term sickness absence

AIMS To examine the effect of workplace bullying on long-term sickness absence using a prospective design. BACKGROUND Although bullying has been identified as a serious problem in the health care sector, little attention has been given to the possible effect of workplace bullying on long-term sickness absence and its implications. METHODS The sample consisted of 9949 employees (78.1% response rate) working in the elderly-care sector in 36 Danish municipalities. Long-term sickness absence was measured by linking a survey on work and health to the national register on social transfer payments. RESULTS Among the 1171 employees that were bullied at work in the past 12 months, 1.8% were frequently bullied and 7.3% were occasionally bullied. The risk of long-term sickness absence was higher for those frequently bullied even after adjusting for psychosocial work characteristics [rate ratio (RR) = 1.92, confidence interval (CI): 1.29-2.84; P < 0.05]. CONCLUSION This is the first prospective study that explored the effect of both frequent and occasional bullying on long-term sickness absence among health care employees. The effect of frequent bullying on long-term sickness absence was independent of the psychosocial work characteristics. IMPLICATIONS FOR NURSING MANAGEMENT Workplace bullying might impact negatively the quality of care and patients safety.

Bullying and employee turn-over among health care workers: A three-wave prospective study

AIM To investigate the risk of turnover among targets of bullying at work. BACKGROUND Exposure to bullying seems to leave targets with intentions to leave their workplaces. However, it is uncertain to what extent they actually leave. METHOD Data were collected by questionnaires in a three-wave study among Danish healthcare workers at the time of graduation (T₁ ), 1 (T₂ ) and 2 years (T₃ ) later. We followed 2154 respondents who participated in all three waves. RESULTS The first year after graduation, 9.2% reported being bullied at work, 1.8% frequently. Follow-up analyses showed a strong relationship between exposure to bullying at T₂ and turnover at T₃ [odds ratio (OR) for frequently bullied = 3.1]. The inclusion of push factors such as low social support and low sense of community, intention to leave and ill health did not change the relation between bullying and turnover significantly. Three reasons for quitting stood out among reasons given by the bullied respondents: poor leadership, being exposed to negative behaviour and health problems. CONCLUSION Bullying may be costly to an organization in terms of staff turnover and subsequent recruitment and training of replacements. IMPACT FOR NURSING MANAGEMENT: Managers should regularly monitor the psychosocial work environment. To prevent bullying local policies and procedures should be developed, implemented and evaluated.

Frequency of bullying at work, physiological response, and mental health

OBJECTIVE The present study aimed to elucidate the relationship between bullying at work and cortisol secretion. Of particular interest was to examine whether frequently and occasionally bullied persons differed from nonbullied persons. METHODS The study included 1944 employees (1413 women and 531 men) from 55 workplaces in Denmark (16 private and 39 public workplaces). During a work day three saliva samples were collected at awakening, +30 min later, and at 20:00 hours, and analyzed for cortisol concentrations. Mental health was assessed using items on somatic, cognitive, stress, and depressive mood. RESULTS Of the 1944 employees, 1.1% was frequently bullied and 7.2% occasionally bullied. Frequently bullied persons reported poorer mental health and had a 24.8% lower salivary cortisol concentration compared with the nonbullied reference group. Occasionally bullied persons had a poorer self-reported mental health, but their cortisol concentrations did not deviate from the group of nonbullied persons. The associations remained significant even after controlling for age, gender, exact time of sampling, mental health, and duration of bullying. Bullying occurred at 78% of the workplaces (43 workplaces); frequent bullying occurred at 21% of the workplaces (40%). CONCLUSION Frequent bullying was associated with lower salivary cortisol concentrations. No such association was observed for occasional bullying. Whether the generally lower secretion of cortisol among the frequently bullied persons indicate an altered physiological status remains to be evaluated in future studies. Yet, the physiological response seems to underscore the possibility that bullying indeed may have measurable physiological consequences. Hence, the physiological response supports the mental symptoms found among the frequently bullied.

A systematic review of longitudinal studies of nonfatal workplace violence

Risk factors and consequences of exposure to violence at work were examined through a systematic review of longitudinal studies of workplace violence. Literature in different databases was screened and the articles were selected on the basis of a set of inclusion criteria. Sixteen studies were included into the review and they were evaluated according to a number of criteria recommended for use in systematic reviews. Of the reviewed studies, 12 met more than half of the evaluation criteria. The studies identified individual, situational, and structural risk factors of workplace violence. Five studies demonstrated that being subjected to violence at work have both acute and long-term consequences for the exposed staff and the workplace. Two studies also found symptoms of Posttraumatic Stress Disorder in victims. In view of the detrimental effects of violence, it is important that preventive measures are taken and evaluated in future longitudinal studies.

Exposure to negative acts at work, psychological stress reactions and physiological stress response.

OBJECTIVES The overall aim of the study was to test the association between exposure to negative acts at work, psychological stress-reactions and cortisol secretion and whether some negative acts are more detrimental to health than others. METHODS A questionnaire study included 1010 respondents from 55 workplaces. Three saliva samples collected from the participants at awakening, 30 min later and at 20:00 during a workday were analysed for cortisol concentrations. Negative acts were measured using a modified version of the revised Negative Acts Questionnaire (to measure bullying behaviour). Factor analyses identified four subscales: social isolation, direct harassment, intimidating behaviour and work related acts. Psychological stress-reactions were measured by the Impact of Event Scale (IES) measuring traumatic stress-reactions. RESULTS Having controlled for gender, age, other traumatic incidents and physical violence, multiple regression analyses showed significant linear associations between social isolation and the three IES scales: hyper-arousal, intrusive thoughts, and avoidance behaviour. Work-related negative acts were significantly associated with all three outcome scales though to a lesser degree, whereas direct harassment was only associated with avoidance behaviour. Intimidating acts were significantly associated with hyper-arousal. We found significantly reduced levels of cortisol concentration for exposure to direct harassment and intimidating behaviour. CONCLUSION The results show that some negative acts such as direct harassment and intimidating behaviour are associated with psychological stress-reactions and a negative physiological stress response. Extending previous research this indicates that some negative acts are more detrimental than others in so far as exposure to these acts affects both psychological and physiological health.

Work-related violence as a predictor of fatigue: A 5-year follow-up of the Danish Work Environment Cohort Study

The main purpose of this study was to analyse work-related violence as a predictor of fatigue. In 1990 and 1995, 5001 Danish employees (a representative sample of the Danish workforce) were interviewed by telephone. The response rates were 90% in 1990 and 84% in 1995. The interviews included questions on fatigue and violence in 1990 and the SF-36 Vitality Scale (energy level and fatigue) in 1995. We found an association between exposure to work-related violence (both actual and threatened) in 1990 and fatigue in 1995. Employees who had been subjected to work-related violence in 1990 were approximately three times as likely to be fatigued in 1995 as non-exposed respondents. Violence predicted fatigue independently of a number of covariates, such as gender and age, social support, interpersonal conflict, type of contact at work with people other than colleagues, fatigue at baseline, and social class. We also found that exposure to violence in 1990 strongly predicted exposure to violence in 1995. Fatigue may result in a lower quality of life, a reduced ability to cope with the workload, and it may also reduce commitment towards clients. This may have an impact on the workplace and co-workers, who may have to cope with a higher workload. (Abstract Adapted from Source: Work & Stress, 2003. Copyright

Bullying at work and onset of a major depressive episode among Danish female eldercare workers

OBJECTIVE The aim of this study was to analyze whether exposure to workplace bullying among 5701 female employees in the Danish eldercare sector increases the risk of onset of a major depressive episode (MDE). METHODS Participants received questionnaires in 2004-2005 and again in 2006-2007. MDE was assessed with the Major Depression Inventory. We examined baseline bullying as a predictor of onset of MDE at follow-up using multiple logistic regression. We further conducted a cross-sectional analysis at the time of follow-up among participants who at baseline were free of bullying, MDE, and signs of reduced psychological health. Finally, we analyzed reciprocal effects, by using baseline bullying and baseline MDE as predictors for bullying and MDE at follow-up. RESULTS Onset rates of MDE in the groups of no, occasional, and frequent bullying were 1.5%, 3.4%, and 11.3%, respectively. Odds ratios (OR) for onset of MDE were 2.22 [95% confidence interval (95% CI) 1.31-3.76] for occasional bullying and OR 8.45 (95% CI 4.04-17.70) for frequent bullying, after adjustment for covariates. In the cross-sectional analysis, OR were 6.29 (95% CI 2.52-15.68) for occasional bullying and 20.96 (95% CI 5.80-75.80) for frequent bullying. In the analyses on reciprocal effects, both baseline bullying [occasional: OR 2.12 (95% CI 1.29-3.48) and frequent: OR 6.39 (95% CI 3.10-13.17)] and baseline MDE [OR 7.18 (95% CI 3.60-14.30] predicted MDE at follow-up. However, only baseline bullying [occasional: OR 7.44 (95% CI 5.94-9.31) and frequent: OR 11.91 (95% CI 7.56-18.77)] but not baseline MDE [OR 0.93 (95% CI 0.47-1.84)] predicted bullying at follow-up. CONCLUSIONS Workplace bullying increased the risk of MDE among female eldercare workers. MDE did not predict risk of bullying. Eliminating bullying at work may be an important contribution to the prevention of MDE.