Workplace bullying in NHS community trust: staff questionnaire survey

British Medical Journal,  Jan 23, 1999  by Lyn Quine

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Statistical analysis

A supportive work environment has been suggested to act as a coping strategy or moderator, buffering the individual from the damaging effects of work stressors such as bullying.[20] The moderator effect is typically shown as an interaction term in analysis of variance.[23] To test whether support at work could act as a moderator, five two-way analyses of variance were conducted. The dependent variables were job satisfaction, propensity to leave, job induced stress, and anxiety and depression. The independent variables were scores on the support at work scale, which was split at the mid point to give two groups, staff with poor support and staff with good support and scores on the bullying variable, which was divided into reported bullying and no reported bullying.

Results

We received 1100 completed questionnaires, which represented a response rate of 70%. Table 1 shows the profile of the participants. Checks made with the personnel department indicated that the sample accurately reflected the profile of the trust in terms of age, sex, and occupational groups.

Table 1 Characteristics of study participants

                                       No (%) of respondents
Occupational group (n=1100)

Nurses(*)                                      396 (36)
Therapists([dagger])                           111 (10)
Administrative staff                           132 (12)
Doctors                                         49 (5)
Clinical psychologists                          11 (1)
Other professionals([double dagger])           101 (9)
Unqualified staff([paragraph])                 300 (27)
Sex (n=1091)
Male                                           176 (16)
Female                                         915 (84)
Hours of work (n=1097)
Full time                                      560 (51)
Part time                                      537 (49)

(*) For example, `registered general nurses, registered mental health nurses, registered learning disabilities nurses, health visitors.

([dagger]) For example, occupational therapists, speech and language therapists, chiropodists, physiotherapists.

([double dagger]) For example, social work, residential care, health promotion.

([paragraph]) For example, unqualified residential care staff, secretarial staff, porters, catering, cleaning, and maintenance staff.

Numbers do not add up to 1100 because some participants did not answer all questions.

Table 2 shows the proportion of staff reporting each type and category of bullying. Overall, 421 (38%) people reported experiencing one or more types of bullying and 241 (22%) described an incident in the past three months; 460 (42%) had witnessed the bullying of others.