Exploring the phenomenon of mobbing in health professionals at the university general hospital of Heraklion

ABSTRACT Introduction: According to the international literature, workplace bullying (mobbing) is frequent in health services. In Greece, however, research and management policies are not yet sufficient. Purpose: The purpose of the study was to investigate the phenomenon of mobbing in health professionals of University General Hospital of Heraklion (Pa.G.N.I.), Greece. Methods: A cross sectional quantitative empirical study was conducted on a sample of 80 nurses, nursing assistants and doctors (response rate 53.3%) in July-October 2016. Negative Acts Questionnaire - Revised was used for data collection and IBM SPSS Statistics V.23 for the statistical analysis. Results: The 65% of the sample were women, 57.5% were nurses and nursing assistants and 42.5% doctors. University graduates were the 48.8% of the participants, 38.8% graduates of applied universities and 12.5% of secondary nursing schools. Administrative positions were occupied by the 13% of the nurses and nursing assistants and 50% of doctors were interns. With the self-report approach, 41.3% of the participants were reported as victims of serious mobbing and 31.3% as victims of occasional mobbing. The self-labelling approach showed that 6.3% identified themselves as victims of serious mobbing and 37.6% as victims of occasional mobbing. Work-related mobbing was more commonly recognized. Perpetrators were also recognized mostly as men, doctors were identified as victims more than nurses and nursing assistants in relation to work-related mobbing (p<0.05). Head nurses were identified as victims more than nurses regarding personal mobbing (p<0.05), University graduates were identified as victims more than graduates of applied universities and of secondary school regarding work-related mobbing (p<0.05). Conclusions: The present study revealed the frequent occurrence of mobbing in health professionals. A phenomenon often observed in the literature for this population group. Further research is needed in a larger sample and other health professionals.