Measuring workplace bullying: reliability and validity of the Japanese version of the negative acts questionnaire.
OBJECTIVE
Workplace bullying is increasingly being recognized as a serious problem within the work environment. Previous studies in European countries have reported the prevalence of workplace bullying and its association with poor mental health, using the Negative Acts Questionnaire-Revised (NAQ-R: Einarsen & Hoel, 2001), but there have been very few studies in Japan. The authors translated the 22-item NAQ-R into the Japanese language and examined the internal consistency reliability and concurrent and construct validity, including factor-based validity, of this scale in a sample of Japanese civil servants.


METHODS
A total of 830 males and 796 females were surveyed, using anonymous questionnaires including the NAQ-R, Leymann Inventory of Psychological Terror (LIPT), and scales for interpersonal relations at work and psychological distress (response rate, 46.7%).


RESULTS
Cronbach's alpha coefficients of the internal consistency reliability of the NAQ-R were high (0.91-0.95) for males and females. Workplace bullying measured by the NAQ-R was strongly associated with that measured by the LIPT and other scales on workplace bullying. The NAQ-R was associated with high psychological distress, high intragroup and intergroup conflict, low supervisor and coworker support, and low interactional justice, as expected. Although three factors were extracted, this findings differed slightly from the factor structure previously reported (Einarsen et al., 2009). However, Factor 1 explained most of the variance, indicating that a one factor structure fitted the data better.


CONCLUSIONS
The present study showed acceptable levels of reliability and validity of the Japanese version of the NAQ-R among Japanese civil servants.
Tsuno
Kanami
K
School of Health Sciences and Nursing, Graduate School of Medicine, The University of Tokyo, Tokyo, Japan. ktsuno-tky@umin.ac.jp
Kawakami
Norito
N
Inoue
Akiomi
A
Abe
Kiyoko
K
D000328:Adult; D000704:Analysis of Variance; D058445:Bullying / Q000523:psychology*; D003430:Cross-Sectional Studies; D005163:Factor Analysis, Statistical; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007564:Japan; D008297:Male; D016273:Occupational Exposure; D009790:Occupations / Q000145:classification; D015995:Prevalence; D011594:Psychometrics / Q000295:instrumentation*; D015203:Reproducibility of Results; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires; D014177:Translations; D017132:Workplace / Q000523:psychology*