O2B.1 What psychosocial factors at work are associated to workplace bullying? A study with judiciary brazilian civil servants from southern brazil

Abstract

Introduction Workplace bullying has been currently described as one of the main psychosocial factors at work, with negative impact on health. Its causes and antecedents have been increasingly discussed by researchers, although there is still a lack of epidemiological evidence on the phenomenon. Therefore we aimed to evaluate the association between other psy-chosocial factors at work and bullying in a sample of Judiciary Brazilian Civil Servants. Methods Cross-sectional study with a sample of 1667 workers from the Federal Judiciary in southern Brazil. We used the Psychosocial Safety Climate Scale (PSC-12), the Job Stress Scale (JSS) and the Effort-Reward Imbalance Scale Scale(ERI) in order to evaluate psychosocial antecedents of bullying at work. The Negative Acts Questionnaire (NAQ-r) was used to measure bullying. Poisson regression was used to test associations between bullying and psychosocial factors. Results The overall prevalence of bullying (exposure to a weekly negative act) was 17.7%. High risk Psychosocial Safety Climate, High Job Strain and High Effort-Reward Imbalance increased the prevalence of bullying in 3.14 (CI 2.20-4.49), 5.68 (CI 3.86-8.35) and 4.12 (3.05-5.57) times, respectively. The Poisson Regression model including all psy-chosocial risks showed that all psychosocial factors were strongly and independently associated with bullying (p<0.001). High risk psychosocial safety climate was associated with a 82% higher prevalence of bullying, while high job strain and high effort-reward imbalance were associated with a 172% and 140%, respectively, higher prevalence of bullying. Discussion These findings corroborate the hypothesis that social and organizational factors at work are key determinants of workplace bullying. Interventions to target bullying and protect workers health should focus on work organization and work processes.