In the past, evidence on the negative consequences of workplace bullying has been
limited to cross sectional studies of self reported bullying. In this study, these
consequences were examined prospectively by focusing on sickness absence in hospital
staff.
The Poisson regression analyses of medically certified spells (>/=4 days) and self
certified spells (1-3 days) of sickness absence, relating to bullying and other predictors
of health, were based on a cohort of 674 male and 4981 female hospital employees aged
19-63 years. Data on sickness absence were gathered from employers' registers. Bullying
and other predictors of health were measured by a questionnaire survey.
302 (5%) of the employees reported being victims of bullying. They did not differ
from the other employees in terms of sex, age, occupation, type of job contract, hours
of work, income, smoking, alcohol consumption, or physical activity. Victims of bullying
had higher body mass and prevalence of chronic disease, and their rates of medically
and self certified spells of sickness absence were 1.5 (95% confidence interval (95%
CI) 1.3 to 1.7) and 1.2 (1.1 to 1.4) times higher than those of the rest of the staff.
The rate ratios remained significant after adjustment for demographic data, occupational
background, behaviour involving risks to health, baseline health status, and sickness
absence.
Workplace bullying is associated with an increase in the sickness absenteeism of the
hospital staff. Targets of bullying seem not to belong to any distinct group with
certain demographic characteristics or occupational background.