Workplace Violence, Anxiety and Self-Esteem in Nursing Staff of Primary, Emergency and Intensive Care Units on the Island of Crete

Abstract

Introduction: Mobbing in the workplace occurs when someone repeatedly, for a long time is exposed to negative behaviors and may have difficulty in defending himself. In the nursing profession, labor intimidation is common. It is now accepted that anxiety and self-esteem can play a particularly important role in mental and in physical health of nurses. Purpose: The investigation of self-esteem, the existence of anxiety and the phenomena of workplace mobbing of nursing staff working in Primary Health Care, Intensive Care Unit and in the Emergency Department. Methodology: An investigation was carried out in the area of Crete between August 2017 and January 2018 in fourteen Health Centers, two Primary National Health Networks, four Emergency Department, eleven Intensive Care Units. The study involved 213 nurses. The Leymann Inventory of Psychological Terror, the State-Trait Anxiety Inventory and the Culture-free Self-esteem Inventories had been used. Results: The average age of the participants was 41.73. The 45.5% of the sample is working in Intensive Care Units, 24.9% in Emergency Departments and 29.6% in Primary Care Units. The mean value of trait anxiety was 40.82, state anxiety 39.03, and overall anxiety 79.85 for the overall study sample. They were exposed to at least one mobbing behavior in the past 12 months, and for at least once a week, almost daily or daily the 11.3% These 24 nurses attribute this behavior to competition problems (60.9%) and jealousy (58.7%). The most nurses of the total sample (50.5%) had a middle self-esteem. Conclusions: The evaluation of the results shows that the nursing staff of the overall sample of the study experiences mild anxiety symptoms. Mobbing seems to be at high rates. Early recognition of the phenomenon and its management as well as enhancing of the self-esteem should be the best practice of intervention to prevent it.