Sickness, colleagues' harassment in teachers' work and emotional exhaustion.
The aim of this study was to assess the relationship among colleagues' harassment, emotional exhaustion, and sickness absence with a sample of teachers.


METHODS
The sample consisted of 351 teachers from 8 secondary schools in Kaunas. Instruments used in the study included the Work Harassment Scale (WHS) developed by Björkqvist and Osterman (1992), the Emotional Exhaustion Scale (the MBI-ES) by Maslach et al. (1996), and a questionnaire of demographic information.


RESULTS
Data analysis indicated that a higher level of work harassment was related to higher emotional exhaustion. Regression analysis findings indicated that a higher level of emotional exhaustion was related to higher levels of disruption, humiliation, alienation, and indignity. Teachers who observed harassment reported higher levels of emotional exhaustion. Respondents who missed work due to illness reported higher levels of disruption on the WHS.


CONCLUSIONS
The study indicated that work harassment could be an important aspect in teacher's health. The seriousness of the work harassment phenomenon may be supported by the results showing that teachers who witnessed others being harassed experienced a higher level of emotional exhaustion. The phenomenon appears to be an area that requires additional research.
Department of Theoretical Psychology, Vytautas Magnus University, Kaunas, Lithuania. psichologe.milda@gmail.com
Milda
M
Astrauskaite
Aidas
A
Perminas
Roy M
RM
Kern
D000374:Aggression; D058445:Bullying; D002055:Burnout, Professional / Q000523:psychology*; D004644:Emotions; D005221:Fatigue / Q000523:psychology*; D006801:Humans; D012494:Sampling Studies; D018582:Sick Leave; D013663:Teaching