Role of Resilience in the Relationship between Workplace Bullying and Work Engagement among Pakistani Nurses

Abstract

Nurses suffer from negative psychological consequences and the impact of workplace bullying on organizational performance is rising to become a workplace health issue. Patient care is impacted by the eroded motivation, resilience and work engagement of employees who have been exposed to a workplace culture of negative behaviors over time. The present study was designed to explore the relationship between workplace bullying, resilience and work engagement in Pakistani nurses and to uncover the protective role of resilience in relation to these two variables. A quantitative cross sectional research was used. Convenience sampling was used to collect data from 200 nurses from public and private hospitals in Pakistan. The Negative Acts Questionnaire–Revised (NAQ-R) was used to measure workplace bullying, the Connor–Davidson Resilience Scale (CD-RISC-25) was used to measure resilience and the Utrecht Work Engagement Scale (UWES-17) was used to measure work engagement. Descriptive statistics, Pearson correlation, independent-samples t-test and moderation analysis were employed for analyzing the data. The findings indicated workplace bullying was negatively related to work engagement, and that resilience was positively related to work engagement and mitigated the negative effects of workplace bullying. The study findings suggest that resilience is a psychological resource that helps nurses deal with work stresses and stay positive in the workplace. The results offer practical guidance for healthcare administrators to design anti-bullying policies and interventions for building resilience that will benefit the well-being of nurses and the quality of healthcare services.