Association between workplace bullying and common mental disorders in civil servants from a middle-income country

Abstract

Workplace bullying (WB) is associated with Common mental disorders (CMD) in high-income countries, but there is a lack of evidence relating to this subject in low-and middle-income countries. Therefore, this study aimed to investigate the association between bullying and CMD in Brazil. A cross-sectional study with 907 judicial civil servants from Porto Alegre, southern Brazil, was carried out. WB was measured by the Negative Acts Questionnaire (NAQ-r) and CMD by the Self-Reporting Questionnaire (SRQ-20). Logistic regression was used to analyse data and test hypotheses. The overall prevalence of CMD was 32.8%, while the overall prevalence of bullying was 18.3%. WB was strongly associated with CMD, even after controlling for confounders. After adjustment for sociodemographic, personality and occupational confounders, weekly and daily exposures to negative acts increased 4.32 (95% CI: 2.00–9.33) and 6.80 (95% CI: 3.42–13.51) times the risk of CMD, respectively. Considering the operational definition, bullied workers had a 3.45 (95% CI: 2.26–5.25) higher risk of CMD. The results are consistent with studies from high-income countries. Different ways of categorising exposure to WB and testing association with CMD are suggested. Interventions to prevent bullying, focusing on work processes and psychosocial factors at work, could reduce the risk of mental health problems.