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Influence of mobbing (workplace bullying) on depressive symptoms: a longitudinal study among employees working with people with intellectual disabilities
Author(s) -
FigueiredoFerraz H.,
GilMonte P. R.,
OlivaresFaúndez V. E.
Publication year - 2015
Publication title -
journal of intellectual disability research
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.941
H-Index - 104
eISSN - 1365-2788
pISSN - 0964-2633
DOI - 10.1111/jir.12084
Subject(s) - mobbing , psychology , workplace bullying , depression (economics) , longitudinal study , clinical psychology , medicine , social psychology , pathology , economics , macroeconomics
Abstract Background The problem of mobbing has attracted a great deal of attention over the past few years. This concern has increased the study of the phenomena, which has resulted in many scientific publications. Mobbing has been characterised as an emerging risk at work. The aim of this longitudinal study was to analyse the influence of mobbing on depressive symptoms in a sample of employees working with people with intellectual disabilities (ID). Method The sample consisted of 372 S panish employees working with people with ID at 61 job centres in the V alencian C ommunity ( S pain). Seventy‐nine (21.2%) participants were men, and 293 were (78.8%) women. Mobbing was evaluated by the M obbing‐ UNIPSICO scale, and depressive symptoms were measured using the Z ung S elf R ating D epression S cale. Using analyses of variance ( anova ), we tested the differences in depressive symptoms according to the mobbing criteria indicated by L eymann, that is, frequency and duration at T ime 1 and T ime 2. Results Employees who met the mobbing criteria: frequency (at least once a week) and duration (at least 6 months) at the two study times presented significantly higher levels of depressive symptoms than employees who met mobbing criteria at T ime 1, but did not meet any criteria for mobbing at T ime 2, and employees who did not meet any criteria for mobbing at T ime 1 or T ime 2. Conclusions We conclude that permanence of mobbing from T ime 1 to T ime 2 increases depressive symptoms.