Association of psychosocial factors and bullying at individual and department levels among naval military personnel.
OBJECTIVE
We studied the associations between bullying at work and psychosocial factors both at the individual and at the department levels.


METHODS
The data were collected in a cross-sectional study from a questionnaire sent by mail in 2002 to all military personnel in the Royal Norwegian Navy as part of a general work and health study. Self-experienced and observed bullying as well as scores for psychosocial scales using the General Nordic Questionnaire for Psychological and Social Factors at Work were calculated both for the individuals (n=1604) and as a mean for each Navy department (n=97).


RESULTS
Low scores on the fair leadership, innovative climate, and inequality scales were associated with high occurrence of bullying at the individual level in a backward stepwise multivariate logistic regression, which means that lack of fair leadership and innovative climate and unequal treatment were associated with high occurrence of bullying. At the department level, the three scales were similarly significantly associated with percentage observed bullying when analyzed separately. A low score on the fair leadership scale and lower departmental mean age were associated with high percentage observed bullying in a stepwise multiple linear regression analysis. Repeating the analyses excluding those being bullied did not change the estimates markedly.


CONCLUSIONS
Our findings indicate that the work environment as perceived by the individual and at the department level is related to the occurrence of bullying.
Magerøy
Nils
N
Research Group for Occupational and Environmental Medicine, Unifob Health Bergen/University of Bergen, Norway. nils.mageroy@isf.uib.no
Lau
Bjørn
B
Riise
Trond
T
Moen
Bente E
BE
D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D000369:Aged, 80 and over; D003430:Cross-Sectional Studies; D004651:Employment / Q000523:psychology*; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008016:Life Change Events; D016014:Linear Models; D016015:Logistic Models; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D008889:Military Personnel / Q000523:psychology*; D009664:Norway; D016272:Occupational Health; D012919:Social Behavior; D012931:Social Environment; D013315:Stress, Psychological / Q000523:psychology*; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires; D017132:Workplace / Q000523:psychology*