Evidencia científica de la relación entre acoso laboral y depresión

Abstract

Introduction: Workplace bullying is a silent epidemic that affects motivation and productivity of workers, but there are also consequences in psychosocial level being depression one of its. Objectives: The objective is to identify the scientific evidence on the relationship between bullying and depression. Methods: We formulated a set of equations search using the terms: Mobbing, Depression, Workplace Bullying, Harassment, Workplace Bullying Depression, which were applied to different bibliographic databases (IBECS, LILACS, The Cochrane Library Plus, SciELO, WHOLIS , OSH Update), which allowed the identification of 36 references of which 8 met the inclusion criteria. In relation with each objectives the information was extracted after full-text review. Results: The prevalence of bullying ranged between 11.9% and 81% depending on the country in which the study was conducted. Female, having a college education and seniority or experience in the job are factors that determined an increased vulnerability to harassment. The profile of the harasser is: male, and generally superior to the victim, verbal abuse, harassment and increased workload are the bullying strategies most used. All studies evidence a positive relationship between bullying and depression. Conclusions: The review, does not establish a causal relationship between bullying and depression. The reproducibility of the results of the studies show the existence of an association between bullying and depression, being necessary to promote longitudinal studies that could show, or not, a causal association.