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Annals of General Psychiatry
Published in: Annals of General Psychiatry 1/2016

Open Access 01-12-2016 | Primary research

Workplace bullying and general health status among the nursing staff of Greek public hospitals

Authors: Christina Karatza, Sofia Zyga, Styliani Tziaferi, Panagiotis Prezerakos

Published in: Annals of General Psychiatry | Issue 1/2016

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Abstract

Background

The arduous emotional and physical nurses’ work, the gradual nursing staff cutbacks and the lack of recognition that nurses feel regarding their skills and overall capabilities are some of the factors that act of bullying between nursing staff and management, between nurses and patients/families or even among nurses themselves. Workplace bullying has physical and psychological effects on worker-victims and, by extension, patients themselves. The purpose of this study was to investigate the relationship between the phenomenon of workplace bullying and general health status among the nursing staff of Greek public hospitals.

Methods

A cross-sectional study was conducted on a convenience sample of 841 members of the nursing staff working in five major hospitals of the 1st Regional Health Authority of Attica, located in Athens. The response rate was 84.1 %. The respondents completed the Negative Acts Questionnaire (NAQ) and the General Health Questionnaire (GHQ-12) and also their demographic characteristics. The appropriate permissions were obtained by the Hospitals’ Ethics Committees and the questionnaire’s authors. Data were collected from March to July 2013. Data analysis was performed with IBM SPSS 21.0 and included t test, χ 2 test and regression analysis. The two-tailed significance level was set ≤0.05.

Results

30.2 % of the respondents reported that they had been psychologically harassed in their workplaces during the preceding 6 months. Statistical analysis revealed that relative to other respondents, respondents who had received support from their families and friends enjoyed better health but respondents who perceived their work environments more negatively because of work-related bullying suffered from worse general health.

Conclusions

Workplace bullying among nursing staff is a major concern in Greece. Support systems play a crucial role in addressing the negative effects of bullying and they should be taken into account when designing prevention and troubleshooting policies about bullying.
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Metadata
Title
Workplace bullying and general health status among the nursing staff of Greek public hospitals
Authors
Christina Karatza
Sofia Zyga
Styliani Tziaferi
Panagiotis Prezerakos
Publication date
01-12-2016
Publisher
BioMed Central
Published in
Annals of General Psychiatry / Issue 1/2016
Electronic ISSN: 1744-859X
DOI
https://doi.org/10.1186/s12991-016-0097-z

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