Interventions for prevention of bullying in the workplace

Abstract

Background Bullying has been identified as one of the leading workplace stressors, with adverse consequences for the individual employee, groups of employees, and whole organisations. Employees who have been bullied have lower levels of job satisfaction, higher levels of anxiety and depression, and are more likely to leave their place of work. Organisations face increased risk of skill depletion and absenteeism, leading to loss of profit, potential legal fees, and tribunal cases. It is unclear to what extent these risks can be addressed through interventions to prevent bullying. Objectives To explore the effectiveness of workplace interventions to prevent bullying in the workplace.

Reframing and addressing horizontal violence as a workplace quality improvement concern

“…In order to effectively address horizontal violence, we need to move away from this organizational‐level fundamental attribution error and address contributions at all levels and from all sources. Authors of a recent systemic review of interventions to prevent bullying within the nursing profession conclude that “evidence supporting the effectiveness of current interventions is of very low quality and call for larger controlled prevention interventions operating on multiple levels, with validated and reliable outcome measures and a minimum of 6‐month follow‐up” . Framing horizontal violence as quality improvement concerns allows behavior to be addressed within existing quality improvement frameworks on a larger scale.…”

“…Given the importance of context to human behavior, this framing is a form of organizational‐level fundamental attribution error and ignores the importance of context. In addition, interventions on an individual level have not proven effective in combating behaviors associated with horizontal violence …”

A review of the reporting of web searching to identify studies for Cochrane systematic reviews

“…Of the 39 reviews that reported the use of a website, 34 reviews (87%) reported this in the Search methods for identification of studies section. The remaining 5 reviews reported searching websites in the Potential biases section . This was usually a statement that websites were searched for unpublished literature to counteract bias in the published literature.…”

“…There were 2 reviews (less than 1% of the total) that reported web searching using both search engines and websites. 25,26 A full list of reviews that reported using search engines and websites is presented in Appendix S2. Table 3 shows how many Cochrane reviews reported 0 to 5 details inclusively about searching using a search engine or website.…”

An evaluation of the “BE NICE Champion” programme: A bullying intervention programme for registered nurses

“…Role‐playing effectively develops practical skills by practicing in small group scenarios (DeNeve & Heppner ; Rao & Stupan ). Additionally, education was found to be the most frequently used intervention to prevent bullying (Gillen, Sinclair, Kernohan, Begley, & Luyben, ). The working conditions of RNs may be improved by such educational interventions as these initiatives impact workplace culture.…”