Abstract:

The purpose of this paper was to find out important facts about work-place bullying in hospital settings by means of defined specific research goals, i.e. to check out the incidence (in total and in regard of gender, age and profesional degree) of workplace bullying and comparison of bullied nurses with non-bullied ones in regard of absenteeism, sick-leave and perceived health conditions. It is used survey method on the sample of 350 nurses in Clinical Hospital Center Split, Croatia (large hospital which serve to about 2.000.000 people per year). It is found that workplace bullying incidence was 38,7% (in horizontal, vertical and the both workplace bullying type), there was no found statisticall difference in their incidence in regard of gender, age and professional degree. Further more it is found that workplace bullying brings to the significant increased abseenteism, increased sick-leave and increased negative health symptoms (which vary in dependance of nurse age) by the bullied nurses. The value of this research is in detailed diagnosis of different aspects of workplace bullying phenomenon in high risky hospital (nursing) settings.