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The effect of workplace violence on depression among medical staff in China: the mediating role of interpersonal distrust

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International Archives of Occupational and Environmental Health Aims and scope Submit manuscript

Abstract

Objective

Workplace violence has been recognized globally as a serious occupational hazard in health service occupations, and existing studies have identified that workplace violence can significantly lead to depression. Interpersonal distrust, an important topic, has also been proved associated with workplace violence and depression. However, the mediating effect of interpersonal distrust has not been tested before. Results of such testing can help us to understand further the effect mechanism of workplace violence on depression.

Methods

In the current study, we collected 3426 valid questionnaires based on a cross-sectional design distributed among medical staff in Chinese hospitals. Depression, workplace violence, interpersonal distrust, social support, physical diseases, and some other social-demographic variables were evaluated. SPSS macros program (PROCESS v3.3) was used to test the mediating effect of interpersonal distrust on the association between workplace violence and depression.

Results

The data analyzed in the current study demonstrated that 52.2% of medical staff had experienced workplace violence before. Experiencing verbal violence (β = 2.99, p < 0.001), experiencing physical violence (β = 3.70, p < 0.01), experiencing both kinds of violence (β = 4.84, p < 0.001), high levels of interpersonal distrust (β = 0.22, p < 0.001), working as a nurse (β = 1.10, p < 0.05), working as a manager (β =  − 1.72, p < 0.001), suffering physical disease (β = 3.35, p < 0.001), and receiving social support (β =  − 0.23, p < 0.001) were significantly associated with depression. Workplace violence had not only positive direct effects on depression, but also an indirect effect on depression through interpersonal distrust as a mediator.

Conclusion

Interpersonal distrust can mediate the association between workplace violence and depression. Increasing interpersonal trust or reducing workplace violence would be beneficial to promoting mental health status among medical staff.

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Data availability

The datasets used and/or analyzed during the current study are available from the corresponding author on reasonable request.

Abbreviations

NHC:

National Health Commission of China

GDP:

Gross National Product

CES-D:

Center for Epidemiologic Studies-Depression Scale

ITS:

Interpersonal Trust Scale

MSPSS:

Multidimensional Scale of Perceived Social Support

ANOVA:

Analysis of Variance

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Acknowledgements

We would like to thank Yue Teng, Tingting Liu, and Wei Sun for their assistance in data collection. We also want to thank the reviewers for their wonderful comments on our manuscript.

Funding

The research was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (71603149 and 71974114), Shandong Provincial Natural Science Foundation (ZR2016HQ01) and Shandong University (IFYT18033).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Centre for Health Management and Policy Research, School of Public Health, Cheeloo College of Medicine, Shandong University, 44 Wenhuaxi Road, Jinan, 250012, Shandong, China

    Haipeng Wang & Long Sun

  2. NHC Key Lab of Health Economics and Policy Research (Shandong University), Jinan, 250012, China

    Haipeng Wang & Long Sun

  3. Qilu Hospital of Shandong University, Jinan, 250012, China

    Yuxia Zhang

Authors
  1. Haipeng Wang
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  2. Yuxia Zhang
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  3. Long Sun
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Contributions

All the authors read and approved the final manuscript. HW wrote the manuscript, YZ collected the data and comment on the draft of this manuscript, and LS designed the study and analyzed the data.

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Long Sun.

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Conflict of interest

The authors declare that they have no competing interests.

Ethics approval and consent to participate

The institutional review board of Shandong University School of Public Health (ref.: 20181219) approved the study protocol before data collection. Informed consent was obtained from all the participants.

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Wang, H., Zhang, Y. & Sun, L. The effect of workplace violence on depression among medical staff in China: the mediating role of interpersonal distrust. Int Arch Occup Environ Health 94, 557–564 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00420-020-01607-5

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00420-020-01607-5

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