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Bullying and employee turnover among healthcare workers: a three‐wave prospective study
Author(s) -
HOGH ANNIE,
HOEL HELGE,
CARNEIRO ISABELLA G.
Publication year - 2011
Publication title -
journal of nursing management
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.925
H-Index - 76
eISSN - 1365-2834
pISSN - 0966-0429
DOI - 10.1111/j.1365-2834.2011.01264.x
Subject(s) - workplace bullying , psychosocial , graduation (instrument) , occupational safety and health , turnover , health care , inclusion (mineral) , odds , psychology , danish , nursing , medicine , social psychology , logistic regression , psychiatry , linguistics , philosophy , geometry , mathematics , management , pathology , economics , economic growth
hogh a., hoel h. & carneiro i.g. (2011) Journal of Nursing Management 19, 742–751
Bullying and employee turnover among healthcare workers: a three‐wave prospective study Aim To investigate the risk of turnover among targets of bullying at work. Background Exposure to bullying seems to leave targets with intentions to leave their workplaces. However, it is uncertain to what extent they actually leave. Method Data were collected by questionnaires in a three‐wave study among Danish healthcare workers at the time of graduation (T 1 ), 1 (T 2 ) and 2 years (T 3 ) later. We followed 2154 respondents who participated in all three waves. Results The first year after graduation, 9.2% reported being bullied at work, 1.8% frequently. Follow‐up analyses showed a strong relationship between exposure to bullying at T 2 and turnover at T 3 [odds ratio (OR) for frequently bullied = 3.1]. The inclusion of push factors such as low social support and low sense of community, intention to leave and ill health did not change the relation between bullying and turnover significantly. Three reasons for quitting stood out among reasons given by the bullied respondents: poor leadership, being exposed to negative behaviour and health problems. Conclusion Bullying may be costly to an organization in terms of staff turnover and subsequent recruitment and training of replacements. Impact for Nursing Management Managers should regularly monitor the psychosocial work environment. To prevent bullying local policies and procedures should be developed, implemented and evaluated.