Perceived bullying among Norwegian doctors in 1993, 2004 and 2014-2015: a study based on cross-sectional and repeated surveys

Perpetrators of gender-based workplace violence amongst nurses and physicians-A scoping review of the literature

In healthcare settings worldwide, workplace violence (WPV) has been extensively studied. However, significantly less is known about gender-based WPV and the characteristics of perpetrators. We conducted a comprehensive scoping review on Type II (directed by consumers) and Type III (perpetuated by healthcare workers) gender based-WPV among nurses and physicians globally. For the review, we followed the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic and Meta Analyses extension for Scoping Review (PRISMA-ScR). The protocol for the comprehensive review was registered on the Open Science Framework on January 14, 2022, at https://osf.io/t4pfb/. A systematic search in five health and social science databases yielded 178 relevant studies that indicated types of perpetrators, with only 34 providing descriptive data for perpetrators' gender. Across both types of WPV, men (65.1%) were more frequently responsible for perpetuating WPV compared to women (28.2%) and both genders (6.7%). Type II WPV, demonstrated a higher incidence of violence against women; linked to the gendered roles, stereotypes, and societal expectations that allocate specific responsibilities based on gender. Type III WPV was further categorized into Type III-A (horizontal) and Type III-B (vertical). With Type III WPV, gendered power structures and stereotypes contributed to a permissive environment for violence by men and women that victimized more women. These revelations emphasize the pressing need for gender-sensitive strategies for addressing WPV within the healthcare sector. Policymakers must prioritize the security of healthcare workers, especially women, through reforms and zero-tolerance policies. Promoting gender equality and empowerment within the workforce and leadership is pivotal. Additionally, creating a culture of inclusivity, support, and respect, led by senior leadership, acknowledging WPV as a structural issue and enabling an open dialogue across all levels are essential for combating this pervasive problem.

A gender-based review of workplace violence amongst the global health workforce-A scoping review of the literature

Workplace violence (WPV) impacts all levels of the health workforce, including the individual provider, organization, and society. While there is a substantial body of literature on various aspects of WPV against the health workforce, gender-based WPV (GB-WPV) has received less attention. Violence in both the workplace and broader society is rooted in gendered socio-economic, cultural, and institutional factors. Developing a robust understanding of GB-WPV is crucial to explore the differing experiences, responses, and outcomes of GB-WPV with respect to gender. We conducted a scoping review and report on the prevalence and risk factors of GB-WPV in healthcare settings globally. The review followed the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic and Meta-Analyses extension for Scoping Reviews (PRISMA-ScR). We registered the scoping review protocol on the Open Science Framework on January 14, 2022, at https://osf.io/t4pfb/. A systematic search was conducted of empirical literature in five health and social science databases. Of 13667, 226 studies were included in the analysis. Across the studies, more women than men experienced non-physical violence, including verbal abuse, sexual harassment, and bullying. Men experienced more physical violence compared to women. Younger age, less experience, shifting duties, specific clinical settings, lower professional status, organizational hierarchy, and minority status were found to be sensitive to gender, reflecting women's structural disadvantages in the workplace. Given the high prevalence and impact of GB-WPV on women, we provided recommendations to address systemic issues in clinical practice, academia, policy, and research.

Occupational stress among Norwegian physicians: A literature review of long-term prospective studies 2007-2019

AIMS

There are signs of increased stress at work among Norwegian physicians over the last decades, not least among general practitioners (GPs). In this review, we identify trends in both occupational stress and adverse work-related predictors of such stress and burnout in Norwegian physicians.

METHODS

We performed an extensive literature search using MEDLINE, Embase and PsycINFO. We included prospective and repeated cross-sectional studies of work stress among Norwegian physicians published in 2007-2019.

RESULTS

Nine studies with observation periods of 1-20 years were included. Occupational stress (global measure) among all doctors decreased gradually from medical school to 20 years later. The prevalence of an effort-reward imbalance increased fourfold among GPs during the period 2010-2019. Five studies reported higher levels of occupational stress among female physicians than among their male colleagues. Work-home conflict levels increased after graduation until 10 years after leaving medical school and plateaued thereafter. Physicians who graduated in a later cohort reported lower levels of work-home conflict and less workplace violence. Work-home conflict, low colleague support, number of work hours and workload/low autonomy were all independent predictors of occupational stress.

CONCLUSIONS

The reduction in occupational stress during the years after leaving medical school may result from increased competency in clinical work and decreased on-call work. The Co-ordination Act implemented in 2012 may explain the increase in occupational stress among GPs. These findings suggest that both reducing work-home conflict and increasing colleague support are important for doctors' well-being.

Prevalence and Impact of Workplace Bullying among Pharmacy Practice Faculty in the United States

Objective: To identify the prevalence and impact of workplace bullying among pharmacy practice faculty in the United States. Methods: Members of the Pharmacy Practice section of the American Association of Colleges of Pharmacy were invited to complete an online survey about the frequency with which they experienced negative workplace behaviors in the communication, humiliation, manipulation, discrimination, and violence domains as well as workplace bullying in the previous 12 months. Independent t-tests and chi-squared tests were used to investigate associations between workplace bullying and pharmacy practice faculty demographic and employment characteristics. Results: Participants (n=256) reported a median of 6 negative behaviors in the workplace, most often in the communication and humiliation domains. A total of 50 (19.5%) reported experiencing workplace bullying. The most common impacts of workplace bullying included increasing their stress level (n=44/49, 89.8%), negative effects on their emotional health (n=42/49, 85.7%), and job dissatisfaction (n=40/49, 81.6%). Female participants more frequently reported workplace bullying (n=43/196, 21.9%) compared to male participants (n=4/56, 7.1%; p=0.012). Individuals who identified as white were less likely to report workplace bullying (n=40/233, 17.2%) compared to individuals of all other races (n=8/19, 42.1%; p=0.008). Conclusion: Most pharmacy practice faculty reported experiencing some degree of negative workplace behaviors during the past 12 months. Additional strategies are needed to create inclusive work environments with transparent, actionable policies when workplace bullying occurs.

Beyond Bullying, Aggression, Discrimination, and Social Safety: Development of an Integrated Negative Work Behavior Questionnaire (INWBQ)

Negative work behavior (NWB) threatens employee well-being. There are numerous constructs that reflect NWBs, such as bullying, aggression, and discrimination, and they are often examined in isolation from each other, limiting scientific integration of these studies. We aim to contribute to this research field by developing a diagnostic tool with content validity on the full spectrum of NWBs. First, we provide a full description of how we tapped and organized content from 44 existing NWB measurement instruments and 48 studies. Second, we discussed our results with three experts in this research field to check for missing studies and to discuss our integration results. This two-stage process yielded a questionnaire measuring physical, material, psychological, sociocultural, and digital NWB. Furthermore, the questions include a range of potential actors of NWB, namely, internal (employees, managers) and external actors (clients, customers, public, and family members) at work and their roles (i.e., target, perpetrator, perpetrator's assistant, target's defender, outsider, and witness of NWBs). Finally, the questionnaire measures what type of harm is experienced (i.e., bodily, material, mental, and social harm).

Gene-environment interaction study on the polygenic risk score for neuroticism, childhood adversity, and parental bonding

The present study examines whether neuroticism is predicted by genetic vulnerability, summarized as polygenic risk score for neuroticism (PRSN), in interaction with bullying, parental bonding, and childhood adversity. Data were derived from a general population adolescent and young adult twin cohort. The final sample consisted of 202 monozygotic and 436 dizygotic twins and 319 twin pairs. The Short Eysenck Personality questionnaire was used to measure neuroticism. PRSN was trained on the results from the Genetics of Personality Consortium (GPC) and United Kingdom Biobank (UKB) cohorts, yielding two different PRSN. Multilevel mixed-effects models were used to analyze the main and interacting associations of PRSN, childhood adversity, bullying, and parental bonding style with neuroticism. We found no evidence of gene-environment correlation. PRSN thresholds of .005 and .2 were chosen, based on GPC and UKB datasets, respectively. After correction for confounders, all the individual variables were associated with the expression of neuroticism: both PRSN from GPC and UKB, childhood adversity, maternal bonding, paternal bonding, and bullying in primary school and secondary school. However, the results indicated no evidence for gene-environment interaction in this cohort. These results suggest that genetic vulnerability on the one hand and negative life events (childhood adversity and bullying) and positive life events (optimal parental bonding) on the other represent noninteracting pathways to neuroticism.

Overcoming Obstacles to Develop High-Performance Teams Involving Physician in Health Care Organizations

Many health care organizations struggle and often do not succeed to be high-performance organizations that are not only efficient and effective but also enjoyable places to work. This review focuses on the physician and organizational roles in limiting achievement of a high-performance team in health care organizations. Ten dimensions were constructed and a number of competencies and metrics were highlighted to overcome the failures to: (i) Ensure that the goals, purpose, mission and vision are clearly defined; (ii) establish a supportive organizational structure that encourages high performance of teams; (iii) ensure outstanding physician leadership, performance, goal attainment; and (iv) recognize that medical team leaders are vulnerable to the abuses of personal power or may create a culture of intimidation/fear and a toxic work culture; (v) select a good team and team members—team members who like to work in teams or are willing and able to learn how to work in a team and ensure a well-balanced team composition; (vi) establish optimal team composition, individual roles and dynamics, and clear roles for members of the team; (vii) establish psychological safe environment for team members; (viii) address and resolve interpersonal conflicts in teams; (xi) ensure good health and well-being of the medical staff; (x) ensure physician engagement with the organization. Addressing each of these dimensions with the specific solutions outlined should overcome the constraints to achieving high-performance teams for physicians in health care organizations.

The Roles of Work-Life Conflict and Gender in the Relationship between Workplace Bullying and Personal Burnout. A Study on Italian School Principals

The present study sought to investigate the associations between workplace bullying and personal burnout both directly and indirectly via work-life conflict. Furthermore, the moderating role of gender in these relations was examined. Traditional research on stress at work focuses on the role of dimensions related to job tasks, demands, and organizational support in influencing the risks for stress-related problems in employees. At the same time, other experiences at work may reduce employees' well-being, such as workplace bullying and family life. Specifically, considering the detrimental role of work-life conflict, it is possible to hypothesize that it would exacerbate workplace bullying's harmful effects on employees' health. Moreover, since previous studies have reported mixed or inconsistent results when considering gender differences with the above-mentioned dimensions, it seems worth investigating the role of employee gender in representing (and response to) the bullying experiences. Building on these considerations, this work verifies whether: (1) work-life conflict mediates the relationship between workplace bullying and burnout; (2) gender moderates all the possible relationships among the constructs. Such hypotheses are verified on a sample of school principals, in light of their peculiar job role. Overall, our findings showed that: (1) Workplace bullying and burnout are associated, both with and without the perception of a concurring work-life conflict; (2) Gender does not moderate all the possible relationships among workplace bullying, work-life conflict and burnout. Overall, being female heightens the risk to perceive work-life conflict in general, as well as to be burnt out, when bullied, with and without the presence of work-life conflict; being male heightens the risk to perceive work-life conflict when bullied. Furthermore, the current findings suggest that family demands may influence school principals' feelings of exhaustion regardless of gender. These findings confirm and expand previous literature, especially concerning a less studied occupation, namely school principals, shedding a new light on their work experiences. Furthermore, the present study offers interesting implications for trainings on principal's skills and professional identity.

Women and men, authors and victims of workplace bullying in Italy: a literature review

INTRODUCTION

It is known in literature that women are frequently victims of murder, sexual assault and stalking. It is interesting to investigate the gender characterization when workplace bullying occurs.

OBJECTIVES

To investigate the phenomenon of workplace bullying and to understand if there are any relevant data about the gender aspects of workplace bullying by reviewing the literature in Italy.

METHODS

Review of articles on a sample of Italian workers. The research question followed the P.E.C.O. model and the article selection is based on PRISMA statement. Fourteen research strings were applied on: Pubmed, Microsoft Academic e Science Direct. A total of 32 articles were selected.

RESULTS

There are few studies in which gender differences on workplace bullying and crimes related are analysed, in some cases it is considered in the research but not in the results section (n=6 articles). In the studies selected women are predominantly victims (n=10 articles), the aggressors instead are usually men (n=2 articles). The attacks suffered by women are frequently discriminations due to family management, children and gender related issues (n=6 articles). Men have the major consequences on mental health if compared to women (n=7 articles).

CONCLUSIONS

Gender is relevant in the characterization of workplace bullying. There is a need for further investigation focusing on gender differences between perpetrators and victims of workplace bullying offences. A unique evaluation protocol is necessary for evaluating workplace bullying, the crimes linked to it and gender differences, to obtain a more accurate comparability of data.

Risk Factors for Workplace Bullying: A Systematic Review

Objective: The goal of this study was to systematically review risk factors for workplace bullying. Methods: The search was carried out in two databases. Studies with estimates of risk factors for workplace bullying were included in the review. We assessed the quality of the selected studies using an adapted version of the Downs and Black checklist. Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses (PRISMA) and Meta-analyses of Observational Studies in Epidemiology (MOOSE) guidelines were used for reporting papers. Results: Fifty-one papers were included, and 70.6% were from European countries. Women were reported to be at higher risk of being bullied in most studies (odds ratio (OR) from 1.17 to 2.77). Authoritarian and laissez-faire leadership styles were positively associated with bullying. Several psychosocial factors, such as stress (OR from 1.37 to 4.96), and occupational risks related to work organization, such as flexible work methods, role conflict, role ambiguity, monotonous or rotating tasks, high demands, pressure of work, and unclarity of duties were strongly associated with bullying. Discussion: The findings highlight the central role of organizational factors in bullying. Policies to prevent bullying must address the culture of organizations, facing the challenge of developing a new management and leadership framework.