Acts of offensive behaviour and risk of long-term sickness absence in the Danish elder-care services: a prospective analysis of register-based outcomes

Abstract

Results indicate that prevention of threats, violence, and bullying may contribute to reduced sickness absence among elder-care staff. The results furthermore suggest that work organizations must be attentive on how to handle and prevent acts of offensive behaviour and support targets of offensive behaviours.

Workplace bullying and sickness absence: a systematic review and meta-analysis of the research literature

“…With the exception of one study from Belgium (44), all included studies originated from Nordic countries (Denmark, Finland, Norway, and Sweden). Thirteen studies had a prospective research design and included registry data on sickness absence (36)(37)(38)(39)(44)(45)(46)(47)(48)(49)(50)(51)(52). Two studies used a retrospective design with registry data on sickness absence (31,53).…”

“…Four studies were based on nationwide representative samples of the working population (36,38,39,54), whereas one study included data representative of a county (50). Seven studies included respondents from healthcare occupations (37,45,47,49,52,53,55). The remaining five studies were based on public employees (46,51), employees in an urban municipality (48), postal employees (31), and employees from mixed occupational groups (44).…”

“…In other studies, bullying was related to both short and long spells of absence. As an illustration, Clausen and colleagues (45) found that bullying predicted sickness absence of >8 weeks among employees in elderly care with a risk ratio of 2.26 (95% CI 1.50-3.42) after adjusting for threats, violence, unwanted sexual attention, psychosocial work environment, and demographical factors. Similar associations were found in other studies among healthcare employees using shorter incidences of sickness absence as outcome (47,49,52).…”

Workplace bullying and sickness presenteeism: cross-sectional and prospective associations in a 2-year follow-up study

“…weekly or daily) exposure. It is established that workplace bullying adversely impacts employees in several ways (see Nielsen and Einarsen 2012;Nielsen et al 2014 for reviews), including outcomes such as physical and mental health problems Hansen et al 2011;Høgh et al 2011bHøgh et al , 2012bKivimӓki et al 2003;Tuckey and Neall 2014), low job-related well-being (Bowling and Beehr 2006;Djurkovic et al 2008;Rodríguez-Muñoz et al 2009), job turnover (Clausen et al 2013;Høgh et al 2011a), professional dropout (Høgh et al 2012a) and sickness absence (Clausen et al 2012;Kivimäki et al 2000;Ortega et al 2011). …”

Physiological Response as Biomarkers of Adverse Effects of the Psychosocial Work Environment

“…For instance that exposure to bullying behaviour such as nasty teasing may generate both early and long-term stress reaction as shown in a 5-year follow-up study of the Danish working population; and that being bullied during your education may have health effects one year later as demonstrated by a prospective study of health care workers in care of the elderly (Høgh et al, 2007). Finally, longitudinal studies have also shown an increase in sickness absence among bullied targets (Clausen et al, 2011;Kivimäki et al, 2000;Ortega et al, 2011), as well as a risk of ending up on early retirement pension (Dellve et al, 2003) According to transactional stress models, the nature and severity of emotional reactions following exposure to bullying may be a function of a dynamic interplay between event characteristics and individual appraisal-and coping processes. Definitions of bullying at work commonly entail descriptions that emphasize prolonged exposure to interpersonal acts of a negative nature, with which the target is unable to cope.…”