Workplace bullying, personality traits and health among hospital nurses: The mediating effect of social support.

ABSTRACT

AIMS AND OBJECTIVES: This study aimed to explore the status of nursing staff's workplace bullying, personality traits, social support and mental health, to find out the predictors of nursing staff's health, and to explore whether social support is a mediator to regulate the impact of workplace bullying on mental health. BACKGROUND: Bullying could cause physical and psychological problems, and nursing workplace bullying causes not only health problems of nursing staff but also patient safety problems. "Workplace bullying" is a worthy topic to pay attention to. Only limited studies could be discovered about the mediating effects between workplace bullying and health. METHODS: Cross-sectional and correlation designs were used. The STROBE was used as a checklist for this study. RESULTS: The results showed that the frequency of poor sleep quality ≥3 days in recent 2 weeks (p < .001), external control personality traits (p = .016), workplace bullying (p < .001) and less social support (p = .001) were the main predictors of the health problems among nurses, and social support was the mediator between workplace bullying and health problems. CONCLUSION: It is recommended that hospital managers should apply regular sleep-wake schedule by designing a biological clock-compliant shift in order to promote good sleep hygiene of the nurses. Providing educational programmes and building up policies to decrease workplace bullying and increase social supports are suggested. RELEVANCE TO CLINICAL PRACTICE Hospital managers should provide education and training related to the prevention of bullying and establish communication and consultation channels for the bullied. Nursing managers should also educate nurses to establish effective social networks with family, friends and colleagues to prevent health problems.