Bullying at work and its relationships with health complaints - Moderating effects of social support and personality.

Bullying in organisations has been an issue of great public interest and debate in Scandinavia during the past few years. Several studies based on interviews with victims have stressed the serious negative impacts such experiences have on the the victims' health and well-being. The aim of the present study is to investigate the relationships between exposure to bullying and self-reported health complaints and whether these relationships are moderated by social support and aspects of the victims personality. The term bullying refers to a situation in which a person is subjected to negative conduct from co-workers or supervisors over a period of time, such as harassment, offensive remarks, constant criticism or social exclusion. To quality as bullying the victim must have difficulties defending himself/herself in the actual situation. 2215 Norwegian union members from both blue-collar and white-collar occupations participated in the study. The results showed that victimization from bullying was associated with an increased level of psychological, psychosomatic and musculoskeletal health complaints. In this study bullying alone accounted for 13% of the variance in psychological complaints and 6% of the variance in musculoskeletal problems. The relationships between bullying and health were moderated by social support and the victims self-esteem and lack of social anxiety.