Mobbing: a meta-analysis

Background: Mobbing is the set of discriminatory and oppressive acts carried out against a worker for a long period of time. Objective: Considered the lack of plain scientific evidences of the consequences of mobbing on the victims’ life, the aim of our meta-analysis is to review the articles present in literature and to find and evaluate the effects of mobbing on the psychophysical health of mobbed workers. Methods: Through this systematic search of the articles existing in literature between 1990 and 2009, we found 13 publications useful to our aim. They were case-control studies and offer results expressed as mean and measures of dispersion, which were our inclusion criteria.Statistical analysis was performed on subcategories identified within 5 general categories. Results: On the base of statistically significant results, we found that mobbed workers in the category “Measures of personality” have an increase of cynicism, with a low heterogeneity among studies, a reduction of emotional balance (high heterogeneity among studies), of belief in justice (high heterogeneity among studies) and of self-esteem. In the category “Measures of mental health” we found a significant increase of stress and of impairment of mental health, in both cases with high heterogeneity among studies. Mobbed workers show a significant impairment of physical health too, with high heterogeneity among studies. The results of the category “Measures of perceived occupational stress” show that the worker’s role and the lack of support from colleagues (in both cases with low heterogeneity among studies) can influence and worsen cases of mobbing. In the category “Measures of coping strategies” there aren’t significant differences between victims and controls. Conclusions: We can conclude that mobbing affects the victims’ working and social life and their psychophysical health.