Exposure to bullying behaviours, resilience, and return to work self-efficacy in patients on or at risk of sick leave

Abstract

The study investigated relationships between exposure to bullying behaviours, return to work self-efficacy (RTW-SE) and resilience, and if resilience moderates the bullying-RTW-SE relationship among patients on sick leave or at risk of sick leave due to common mental disorders (CMD). A sample of 675 patients treated in an outpatient clinic was analysed using regressions and moderation analyses by employing SPSS and the Process macro SPSS supple-ment. The results showed a negative relationship between exposure to bullying behaviours and RTW-SE. There was also a positive main effect for resilience, as patients with high resilience score significantly higher on RTW-SE than patients with low resilience irrespective of levels of bullying. Further, the resilience sub-dimension personal resilience moderated the bullying-RTW-SE relationship, while the sub-dimension interpersonal resilience did not. Patients high on personal resilience showed relatively lower RTW-SE scores when exposed to bullying behav-iours, compared to those that were not bullied with high personal resilience levels. Hence, one should take note of the fact that even if resilience may strengthen RTW-SE, bullying is an ad-verse event which particularly affects individuals who present with relatively high levels of resilience resources, at least when it comes to RTW-SE.