The aim of this review is to describe and to analyze scientific reports about occupational violence in the health area. A systematic review of the literature on Academic Search Complete (EBSCO Host), Medline, Pubmed, Scielo, Scopus and Web of Science was performed and 23 articles were selected for analysis. Most studies are quantitative, measuring workplace violence and its consequences, including multi-stratum samples. They mainly measure psychological and external violence and their subjects are hospital workers. Violence is conceived as coming from organizational dimensions. Facilitators of violence are related to the nature of the job and the most commonly studied consequences are related to mental health. The main consequences of the phenomenon are depressive symptoms, post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and work stress. The nature of the job as a facilitator of violence relates primarily to the place of work and to the profession. Most of the studies are carried out with multi-stratum samples and combine workers from different services. However, studies in psychiatric services and with nursing staff are also common.

Workplace bullying has been identified as a global problem because of its growing magnitude and the harmful effects in victims and organizations. Workplace vulnerability is a component of job precarious1ness that reflects insecurity, fear, and labor uncertainty. This paper aims to analyze the associations between the exposure to workplace vulnerability and psychological distress, and to explore the associations between exposure to workplace bullying and psychological distress, by sex. A cross-sectional and probabilistic survey was applied to a randomly-selected valid sample of 1995 salaried workers in three main metropolitan areas of Chile. Chi-square test and logistic regression models controlling for confounders were tested. Female workers were more exposed to workplace vulnerability and presented a higher prevalence of psychological distress. Among women who were vulnerable, one of three reported psychological distress (30.8%), which is higher than men (16.5%). Workers exposed to workplace vulnerability had a greater chance of workplace bullying, workers who perceived high workplace vulnerability had a greater chance of psychological distress, and workers exposed to workplace violence had a greater likelihood of psychological distress in comparison to those who were not exposed. Increasing employment security can reduce the perception of job vulnerability and help prevent the existence of workplace bullying. Additionally, occupational health protection policies should prevent, protect from, and intervene in workplace bullying as a precursor to mental health problems in Chile.

Introduction Cardiovascular diseases (CVDs) are the number one cause of death, and there is evidence that work exposures could be associated with their development. This study aimed to systematically review observational studies of adults exposed to job strain, effort–reward imbalance, long working hours, job insecurity, shift work, and occupational noise, and assess the association of those work exposures with CVDs. Methods The Navigation Guide framework was applied. The population were adults of working age (18–65), and cohort and case–control studies were included. The work exposures were job strain, effort–reward imbalance, long working hours, job insecurity, shift work, and occupational noise. The outcomes were cerebrovascular diseases, ischaemic heart disease, and hypertensive diseases. The selection, data extraction, risk of bias assessment, and quality assessment were carried out by two reviewers independently and disagreements were solved by a third reviewer or by consensus. The synthesis of the results was done by applying the ‘vote counting based on direction’ method, and the results were summarized in an effect direction plot. The strength of the evidence for every risk factor and CVD was defined by consensus. Results A total of 17 643 papers were initially identified in the literature search, but after applying the filters by title and abstract, and full text, 86 studies were finally included. From the included studies, sufficient evidence was found of the harmfulness of job strain for cerebrovascular disease and ischemic heart disease. Furthermore, there was sufficient evidence of the harmfulness of shift work for ischemic heart disease. Evidence of no relationship was found between long working hours and shift work with ischaemic heart disease and hypertensive disease, respectively. The other associations of work exposures and CVDs had limited or inadequate evidence of harmfulness. Conclusions In this comprehensive review, there was sufficient evidence of a harmful relationship between job strain, shift work, and CVDs. For the other work exposures, more high-quality studies are needed. In order to improve current prevention strategies for CVDs, the findings of this review imply that job strain and shift work are work exposures that constitute additional risk factors that could be approached as targets for worksite interventions. Systematic review registration PROSPERO CRD42020179972.

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El acoso laboral ha adquirido relevancia en las últimas décadas, debido a su creciente magnitud y consecuencias negativas en la salud de los trabajadores, existiendo diversos enfoques para estudiarlo. Sin embargo, hasta la fecha en América Latina la evidencia es escasa y focalizada en muestras específicas. El objetivo de este estudio es describir el acoso laboral y su asociación con la salud mental en población asalariada y determinar en qué medida la asociación se modifica según el género. Se realizó una encuesta a una muestra de 1.995 trabajadores y trabajadoras asalariadas de las tres principales áreas metropolitanas de Chile (Gran Santiago, Gran Valparaíso y Gran Concepción) seleccionados al azar en tres etapas (manzanas, viviendas e individuos). La prevalencia de síntomas depresivos, consumo de psicotrópicos y distrés fue de 10,9%, 12,8% y 13% respectivamente en la muestra total, y existe una fuerte asociación entre variables de salud mental y acoso laboral, aún en los modelos ajustados. Al comparar esta asociación en los modelos estratificados por género, no se observaron diferencias significativas entre hombres y mujeres.

El trabajo en catástrofes y emergencias reviste riesgos para la salud de las y los trabajadores. Este artículo identifica el estado de salud mental de las y los profesionales de salud pública que han trabajado en contexto de desastres socionaturales, y los factores protectores y de riesgos que los/as afectan. El método consideró la sistematización de material proveniente de intervenciones en 5 regiones afectadas por catástrofes en Chile. Se elaboró un modelo de talleres de apoyo psicológico de 3 horas, a grupos de 20 a 25 funcionarios pertenecientes a un mismo establecimiento de salud pública de zonas más afectadas. Se aplicó análisis de contenido a los informes de salida de los talleres y se establecieron 3 categorías de análisis: estado de salud mental, factores de riesgo y de protección para la salud mental. Los resultados nos muestran problemas tales como ansiedad, trastornos del sueño, labilidad emocional y agotamiento psíquico; factores de riesgo para la salud mental vinculados a condiciones subóptimas de trabajo, provocando desgaste profesional; factores protectores como la vocación de servicio público, compromiso y solidaridad. Se identifican ciertos elementos comunes de riesgo y de protección para la salud psicológica de quienes enfrentan la primera respuesta en emergencias y catástrofes.

La violencia en el trabajo produce efectos negativos en la salud de los trabajadores y en el funcionamiento de las organizaciones, se ha identificado su vínculo con el aumento o aparición de patologías mentales y psicosomáticas como el síndrome de estrés post traumático, sintomatología depresiva, aumento de los niveles de distrés o uso de psicotrópicos. El objetivo de este artículo es identificar experiencias nacionales e internacionales de intervención contra la violencia en el trabajo. Para esto se realizó una revisión sistemática de la literatura con el método PRISMA, para analizar la información se utilizó análisis de contenido. De los artículos revisados un 64% de los artículos busca intervenir la violencia en sus múltiples formas, incluyendo violencia física y psicológica, o violencia física, psicológica y sexual. Gran parte de las intervenciones se centran en capacitar a los trabajadores (52%) y se utilizó la encuesta como método de evaluación de las intervenciones (64%), realizando evaluaciones ex ante y ex post (55%). La revisión de literatura demostró que la mayoría de las intervenciones son realizadas en países desarrollados y en el área de salud. Sumado a esto, existe gran diversidad en la forma de evaluar las intervenciones, no pudiendo realizar generalizaciones con respecto a la efectividad de las mismas.