↓ Skip to main content

Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews

Interventions for prevention of bullying in the workplace

Overview of attention for article published in Cochrane database of systematic reviews, January 2017
Altmetric Badge

About this Attention Score

  • In the top 5% of all research outputs scored by Altmetric
  • High Attention Score compared to outputs of the same age (97th percentile)
  • High Attention Score compared to outputs of the same age and source (87th percentile)

Mentioned by

news
1 news outlet
blogs
3 blogs
policy
1 policy source
twitter
73 X users
facebook
7 Facebook pages
wikipedia
1 Wikipedia page

Citations

dimensions_citation
123 Dimensions

Readers on

mendeley
692 Mendeley
Title
Interventions for prevention of bullying in the workplace
Published in
Cochrane database of systematic reviews, January 2017
DOI 10.1002/14651858.cd009778.pub2
Pubmed ID
Authors

Patricia A Gillen, Marlene Sinclair, W George Kernohan, Cecily M Begley, Ans G Luyben

Abstract

Bullying has been identified as one of the leading workplace stressors, with adverse consequences for the individual employee, groups of employees, and whole organisations. Employees who have been bullied have lower levels of job satisfaction, higher levels of anxiety and depression, and are more likely to leave their place of work. Organisations face increased risk of skill depletion and absenteeism, leading to loss of profit, potential legal fees, and tribunal cases. It is unclear to what extent these risks can be addressed through interventions to prevent bullying. To explore the effectiveness of workplace interventions to prevent bullying in the workplace. We searched: the Cochrane Work Group Trials Register (August 2014); Cochrane Central Register of Controlled Trials (CENTRAL; The Cochrane Library 2016, issue 1); PUBMED (1946 to January 2016); EMBASE (1980 to January 2016); PsycINFO (1967 to January 2016); Cumulative Index to Nursing and Allied Health Literature (CINAHL Plus; 1937 to January 2016); International Bibliography of the Social Sciences (IBSS; 1951 to January 2016); Applied Social Sciences Index and Abstracts (ASSIA; 1987 to January 2016); ABI Global (earliest record to January 2016); Business Source Premier (BSP; earliest record to January 2016); OpenGrey (previously known as OpenSIGLE-System for Information on Grey Literature in Europe; 1980 to December 2014); and reference lists of articles. Randomised and cluster-randomised controlled trials of employee-directed interventions, controlled before and after studies, and interrupted time-series studies of interventions of any type, aimed at preventing bullying in the workplace, targeted at an individual employee, a group of employees, or an organisation. Three authors independently screened and selected studies. We extracted data from included studies on victimisation, perpetration, and absenteeism associated with workplace bullying. We contacted study authors to gather additional data. We used the internal validity items from the Downs and Black quality assessment tool to evaluate included studies' risk of bias. Five studies met the inclusion criteria. They had altogether 4116 participants. They were underpinned by theory and measured behaviour change in relation to bullying and related absenteeism. The included studies measured the effectiveness of interventions on the number of cases of self-reported bullying either as perpetrator or victim or both. Some studies referred to bullying using common synonyms such as mobbing and incivility and antonyms such as civility. Organisational/employer level interventionsTwo studies with 2969 participants found that the Civility, Respect, and Engagement in the Workforce (CREW) intervention produced a small increase in civility that translates to a 5% increase from baseline to follow-up, measured at 6 to 12 months (mean difference (MD) 0.17; 95% CI 0.07 to 0.28).One of the two studies reported that the CREW intervention produced a small decrease in supervisor incivility victimisation (MD -0.17; 95% CI -0.33 to -0.01) but not in co-worker incivility victimisation (MD -0.08; 95% CI -0.22 to 0.08) or in self-reported incivility perpetration (MD -0.05 95% CI -0.15 to 0.05). The study did find a decrease in the number of days absent during the previous month (MD -0.63; 95% CI -0.92 to -0.34) at 6-month follow-up. Individual/job interface level interventionsOne controlled before-after study with 49 participants compared expressive writing with a control writing exercise at two weeks follow-up. Participants in the intervention arm scored significantly lower on bullying measured as incivility perpetration (MD -3.52; 95% CI -6.24 to -0.80). There was no difference in bullying measured as incivility victimisation (MD -3.30 95% CI -6.89 to 0.29).One controlled before-after study with 60 employees who had learning disabilities compared a cognitive-behavioural intervention with no intervention. There was no significant difference in bullying victimisation after the intervention (risk ratio (RR) 0.55; 95% CI 0.24 to 1.25), or at the three-month follow-up (RR 0.49; 95% CI 0.21 to 1.15), nor was there a significant difference in bullying perpetration following the intervention (RR 0.64; 95% CI 0.27 to 1.54), or at the three-month follow-up (RR 0.69; 95% CI 0.26 to 1.81). Multilevel InterventionsA five-site cluster-RCT with 1041 participants compared the effectiveness of combinations of policy communication, stress management training, and negative behaviours awareness training. The authors reported that bullying victimisation did not change (13.6% before intervention and 14.3% following intervention). The authors reported insufficient data for us to conduct our own analysis.Due to high risk of bias and imprecision, we graded the evidence for all outcomes as very low quality. There is very low quality evidence that organisational and individual interventions may prevent bullying behaviours in the workplace. We need large well-designed controlled trials of bullying prevention interventions operating on the levels of society/policy, organisation/employer, job/task and individual/job interface. Future studies should employ validated and reliable outcome measures of bullying and a minimum of 6 months follow-up.

X Demographics

X Demographics

The data shown below were collected from the profiles of 73 X users who shared this research output. Click here to find out more about how the information was compiled.
Mendeley readers

Mendeley readers

The data shown below were compiled from readership statistics for 692 Mendeley readers of this research output. Click here to see the associated Mendeley record.

Geographical breakdown

Country Count As %
Unknown 692 100%

Demographic breakdown

Readers by professional status Count As %
Student > Master 99 14%
Student > Bachelor 70 10%
Student > Ph. D. Student 58 8%
Researcher 50 7%
Student > Doctoral Student 36 5%
Other 120 17%
Unknown 259 37%
Readers by discipline Count As %
Psychology 93 13%
Medicine and Dentistry 91 13%
Nursing and Health Professions 87 13%
Social Sciences 42 6%
Business, Management and Accounting 30 4%
Other 71 10%
Unknown 278 40%
Attention Score in Context

Attention Score in Context

This research output has an Altmetric Attention Score of 79. This is our high-level measure of the quality and quantity of online attention that it has received. This Attention Score, as well as the ranking and number of research outputs shown below, was calculated when the research output was last mentioned on 06 July 2023.
All research outputs
#540,034
of 25,461,852 outputs
Outputs from Cochrane database of systematic reviews
#954
of 12,090 outputs
Outputs of similar age
#11,776
of 424,599 outputs
Outputs of similar age from Cochrane database of systematic reviews
#29
of 229 outputs
Altmetric has tracked 25,461,852 research outputs across all sources so far. Compared to these this one has done particularly well and is in the 97th percentile: it's in the top 5% of all research outputs ever tracked by Altmetric.
So far Altmetric has tracked 12,090 research outputs from this source. They typically receive a lot more attention than average, with a mean Attention Score of 38.2. This one has done particularly well, scoring higher than 92% of its peers.
Older research outputs will score higher simply because they've had more time to accumulate mentions. To account for age we can compare this Altmetric Attention Score to the 424,599 tracked outputs that were published within six weeks on either side of this one in any source. This one has done particularly well, scoring higher than 97% of its contemporaries.
We're also able to compare this research output to 229 others from the same source and published within six weeks on either side of this one. This one has done well, scoring higher than 87% of its contemporaries.