57
views
0
recommends
+1 Recommend
0 collections
    0
    shares
      • Record: found
      • Abstract: found
      • Article: found
      Is Open Access

      Workplace bullying in the UK NHS: a questionnaire and interview study on prevalence, impact and barriers to reporting

      research-article

      Read this article at

      Bookmark
          There is no author summary for this article yet. Authors can add summaries to their articles on ScienceOpen to make them more accessible to a non-specialist audience.

          Abstract

          Objectives

          To examine the prevalence and impact of bullying behaviours between staff in the National Health Service (NHS) workplace, and to explore the barriers to reporting bullying.

          Design

          Cross-sectional questionnaire and semi-structured interview.

          Setting

          7 NHS trusts in the North East of England.

          Participants

          2950 NHS staff, of whom 43 took part in a telephone interview.

          Main outcome measures

          Prevalence of bullying was measured by the revised Negative Acts Questionnaire (NAQ-R) and the impact of bullying was measured using indicators of psychological distress (General Health Questionnaire, GHQ-12), intentions to leave work, job satisfaction and self-reported sickness absence. Barriers to reporting bullying and sources of bullying were also examined.

          Results

          Overall, 20% of staff reported having been bullied by other staff to some degree and 43% reported having witnessed bullying in the last 6 months. Male staff and staff with disabilities reported higher levels of bullying. There were no overall differences due to ethnicity, but some differences were detected on several negative behaviours. Bullying and witnessing bullying were associated with lower levels of psychological health and job satisfaction, and higher levels of intention to leave work. Managers were the most common source of bullying. Main barriers to reporting bullying were the perception that nothing would change, not wanting to be seen as a trouble-maker, the seniority of the bully and uncertainty over how policies would be implemented and bullying cases managed. Data from qualitative interviews supported these findings and identified workload pressures and organisational culture as factors contributing to workplace bullying.

          Conclusions

          Bullying is a persistent problem in healthcare organisations which has significant negative outcomes for individuals and organisations.

          Related collections

          Most cited references16

          • Record: found
          • Abstract: not found
          • Article: not found

          Occupational stress: its causes and consequences for job performance.

            Bookmark
            • Record: found
            • Abstract: found
            • Article: not found

            Workplace bullying in NHS community trust: staff questionnaire survey.

            L Quine (1999)
            To determine the prevalence of workplace bullying in an NHS community trust; to examine the association between bullying and occupational health outcomes; and to investigate the relation between support at work and bullying. Questionnaire survey. NHS community trust in the south east of England. Trust employees. Measures included a 20 item inventory of bullying behaviours designed for the study, the job induced stress scale, the hospital anxiety and depression scale, the overall job satisfaction scale, the support at work scale, and the propensity to leave scale. 1100 employees returned questionnaires-a response rate of 70%. 421 (38%) employees reported experiencing one or more types of bullying in the previous year. 460 (42%) had witnessed the bullying of others. When bullying occurred it was most likely to be by a manager. Two thirds of the victims of bullying had tried to take action when the bullying occurred, but most were dissatisfied with the outcome. Staff who had been bullied had significantly lower levels of job satisfaction (mean 10.5 (SD 2. 7) v 12.2 (2.3), P<0.001) and higher levels of job induced stress (mean 22.5 (SD 6.1) v 16.9 (5.8), P<0.001), depression (8% (33) v 1% (7), P<0.001), anxiety (30% (125) v 9% (60), P<0.001), and intention to leave the job (8.5 (2.9) v 7.0 (2.7), P<0.001). Support at work seemed to protect people from some of the damaging effects of bullying. Bullying is a serious problem. Setting up systems for supporting staff and for dealing with interpersonal conflict may have benefits for both employers and staff.
              Bookmark
              • Record: found
              • Abstract: found
              • Article: not found

              Workplace bullying and sickness absence in hospital staff.

              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.
                Bookmark

                Author and article information

                Journal
                BMJ Open
                BMJ Open
                bmjopen
                bmjopen
                BMJ Open
                BMJ Publishing Group (BMA House, Tavistock Square, London, WC1H 9JR )
                2044-6055
                2013
                28 June 2013
                : 3
                : 6
                : e002628
                Affiliations
                [1 ]Centre for Medical Education Research, School of Medicine, Pharmacy and Health, Durham University , Durham, UK
                [2 ]Department of Psychology, Faculty of Health and Life Sciences, Northumbria University , Newcastle-upon-Tyne, England, UK
                [3 ]Northern Deanery , Newcastle-upon-Tyne, England, UK
                Author notes
                [Correspondence to ] Dr Madeline Carter; madeline.carter@ 123456durham.ac.uk
                Article
                bmjopen-2013-002628
                10.1136/bmjopen-2013-002628
                3686220
                85f40342-488d-47df-a64a-bfe18b959aee
                Published by the BMJ Publishing Group Limited. For permission to use (where not already granted under a licence) please go to http://group.bmj.com/group/rights-licensing/permissions

                This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Non-commercial License, which permits use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited, the use is non commercial and is otherwise in compliance with the license. See: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/3.0/ and http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/3.0/legalcode

                History
                : 23 January 2013
                : 3 April 2013
                : 3 April 2013
                Categories
                Medical Management
                Research
                1506
                1710
                1703
                1709

                Medicine
                Medicine

                Comments

                Comment on this article