Relation between Workplace Bullying and Work Engagement among Staff Nurses

Abstract

Background: Workplace bullying growth now a worldwide complex phenomenon, it is one of the most common work‐related psychological problems. Bullying costs seem higher for organizations composed of health‐care workers who provide patients' direct complex tasks. It has several adverse effects and closely associated with nurses' work engagement. This study aimed to assess the relation between workplace bullying and work engagement among staff nurses. Research design: A descriptive correlational design was utilized. Setting: The study was conducted at the Ain Shams University Hospital in all departments and critical care units. Subjects: It included 154 staff nurses out of 220 staff nurses; a simple random sample technique was used for carrying out this study. Tools of data collection: The data was collected by using two tools namely; 1) workplace bullying questionnaire; 2) Utrecht work engagement scale (UWES). Results: The current study revealed that, more than half of staff nurses have moderate level of work engagement, nearly half of them have high level of work related bullying, and total work engagement score was a positive independent predicator for the score of total workplace bullying. The model explains that less than three fifths of the variation in the workplace bullying scores, the f value = 2.630 is also indicative of a good line on fit among the variables. The study Concluded that, there are a highly statistically significant positive correlation among all dimensions of workplace bullying and work engagement of the studied staff nurses. Recommendation: Nursing managers need to develop policies to prevent bullying and how to report bullying; establish a complaints unit in all hospital should be include section about workplace bullying and replication of the current study on larger probability sample in different setting and in a broader geographical area; and conduct training program for staff nurses about bullying and different strategies to deal with it.