Workplace bullying and mental health

The last two decades have seen a steep increase in the number of studies
examining the relationship between workplace bullying and mental health. This comes as no surprise, considering that workplace bullying represents a powerful
stressor and a severely traumatic experience that may profoundly shatter people’s
assumptions about themselves and the surrounding world. The goal of this
chapter is to make an overview of the extant international literature on the
relationship between workplace bullying and mental health. After presenting
the available meta-analytic findings, the chapter will summarize the most methodologically
robust international research investigating the impact of workplace
bullying on a diverse array of mental health problems, including depression,
anxiety, psychological distress, post-traumatic stress disorder and burnout. Studies
focusing on the mental health effects of witnessing bullying and examining
reverse causation (i.e. the impact of mental health on the exposure to workplace
bullying) will be also reviewed. The chapter will then move on to the available
research on individual and work-related moderators of the relationship between
workplace bullying and mental health. In the concluding section, the main gaps in
current knowledge will be summarized, followed by a discussion of the future
research directions needed to enhance our understanding of the link between
workplace bullying and mental health.