Abstract: Background: Workplace bullying is considered one of the most occupational stressors. It is widely prevalent worldwide, and healthcare settings are not an exception. Over the past few years, numerous Studies have been produced across the globe about how widespread bullying is as a behavior. One of the main areas of investigations is bullying of healthcare workers. Workplace bullying can have serious implications and significant consequences for those who are exposed like less job satisfaction, ineffective teamwork and poor communication, unnecessary leaves, reducing staff commitment to the organization, burnout, Depression and quitting.
Since there is no study done in the Middle East before on bullying among postgraduate trainee we aimed in our study to measure the prevalence of bullying among residents in Saudi Arabia. And to identify the types and sources of bullying behavior faced during training years to establish roles and policies to prevent bullying based on the result of the study. As well as encourage the residents to report workplace bullying to eliminate bullying behavior in the field of healthcare.
Objectives: This study aims to estimate the prevalence of workplace bullying targeting residents. Also, it aims to identify the influencing factors and consequences of workplace bullying. Methods: In this cross-sectional survey study, 500 doctors were surveyed using a self-administrated electronic questionnaire. The completed questionnaires are 419 which accounts for 83.8% response rate. Statistical analysis using the index of job satisfaction, descriptive statistics, and logistics regression was employed. The results were obtained using SPSS package version 23.
Results: The estimated prevalence rate of experiencing any bullying was 70% among the sampled residents. The estimated prevalence for persistent bullying was 20 – 50%. The job satisfaction index was 55 (54.15, 55.88, p-value = 0.023). Colleagues, supervisors and team leaders are considered the main sources of bullying. The logistic regression identified certain hospital (OR = 0.07), the second-year of residency (OR = 2.17), working more than 8 hours (OR = 2.17), and on-call days per months per each day (OR = 1.13).
Conclusion: Bullying among residents is a silent epidemic. Policies, awareness campaigns, and monitoring programs should be employed to effectively tackling the problem.
