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Study shows workplace bullying rivals diabetes, drinking as heart disease risk factor

January 30, 2019
4 Comments
Heart disease Workplace bullying Workplace violence
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Oxford, England — Employees who are bullied or experience violence at work may face an additional stressor – an increased risk of cardiovascular disease, a recent study of Scandinavian workers suggests.

Researchers analyzed three population-based studies from Sweden and Denmark. The studies, conducted between 1995 and 2011, comprised nearly 80,000 workers between the ages of 18 and 65 who had no prior incidence of cardiovascular disease. Participants were surveyed on workplace bullying or violence at the start of the study, and were followed throughout the analysis.

The researchers then looked at incidence of cardiovascular disease, including first hospitalizations for coronary heart disease or cerebrovascular disease, identified through “nationwide registries based on the International Classification of Disease (ICD) 8, 9 and 10 codes.”

They found that 9 percent of participants said they were bullied at work and 13 percent reported they experienced violence or threats within the past year. Workplace bullying and experiencing violence were linked to a 59 percent and 25 percent higher risk of cardiovascular disease, respectively, after adjustments for age, sex, education, marital status and country of birth.

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Additionally, workers who were bullied frequently – almost every day – in the previous 12 months had a 120 percent higher risk of cardiovascular disease compared with people who were not bullied. Colleagues were responsible for workplace bullying 79 percent of the time. Threats of violence were initiated 9 percent of the time by co-workers.

“The effect of bullying and violence on the incidence of cardiovascular disease in the general population is comparable to other risk factors such as diabetes and alcohol drinking,” lead author Tianwei Xu, a doctoral student at the University of Copenhagen in Denmark, said in a Nov. 19 press release. “It is important to prevent workplace bullying and workplace violence from happening, as they constitute major stressors for those exposed. It is also important to have policies for intervening if bullying or violence occurs.”

The study was published Nov. 19 in the European Heart Journal.

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Me
January 31, 2019
Thank you for this article. I had to leave a workplace and job that I loved because of bullying. I developed angina and an eye condition due to the chronic stress. I found out after a couple of years working there that there had been many people before me that quit because of the bullying. 2 of them had heart attacks and the person after me left and also developed a heart condition. Unfortunately, workplaces still aren't doing anything about it. I worked in a government job that had many policies in place, many complaints filed before myself. I filed a complaint and nothing was done. The fired me and defended and promoted the bully. The same person that had several complaints filed against him for this behaviour. It doesn't matter if work places aren't going to take it seriously and actually address it. As sad as I was to walk away from a job that I loved and was good at, I'm working in a much healthier environment now and grateful was able to get away from the situation. I also suffered financially and still dealing with that aftermath of this but there's no where to turn because no one wants to do anything about. Even though I have evidence and witnesses, lawyers don't want to take on the government and told me its a losing battle that will just bankrupt me.
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Ron Campbell
February 6, 2019
I would like to see what constitutes bullying and violence to this study. I read the material and the derivatives and found only a reference to Nordic culture stating those concepts were well defined. With no basis or examples it becomes hard to target the behavior. What really constitutes bullying/violence in the workplace. I understand there certainly black and white examples, however with this large of a study population and @10% reported behavior, it becomes necessary to know the parameters that people were given to determine their inclusion. Also, what constitutes this behavior in a European setting does not necessarily translate into a US setting. That itself seems to be a recurring issue with many of these studies. Without getting all the way back to the behavior, it can not be targeted properly. Do I hear Root cause?
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Alan Sharland
September 7, 2019
Ron Campbell, I agree entirely. When studies like this use statistics that are not clearly defined then rather than help to address difficult behaviours at work it gives a basis for undermining the importance of the issue due to weak arguments based on unprovable statistics. Strangely the link that led me to this article suggested that "“Workplace bullying happens four times more than sexual harassment”. (Rowell 2005). .....but workplace bullying isn't measurable as there's no clear definition by which to do so whereas proven examples of sexual harassment will be documented and provable. Therefore you could come up with any number of situations that claim to be workplace bullying but they wouldn't be objectively measured. It's an unfortunate distraction from dealing with the important issues of difficult, distressing, morale sapping issues at work when reports make claims that can so easily be undermined.
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Name
September 9, 2019
Yes that’s pretty much true, thank you for the article . I have been bullied at work by multiple people in the span of almost 15 years, passive aggressive behaviour, condescending speech, unfair treatment, discrimination, yelled at and a subject of gossip, etc etc. By the grace of God and some amazing colleagues at work who supported me I survived the time. However because of excessive stress I did suffer from shingles which is an ailment caused by stress. I am still with the same company however the dynamics have changed now by the grace of God most of the bullies have left the company and the Mafia is broken!
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