Prevalence of Workplace Harassment or Mobbing in workers through the application of the Cisneros Scale

Abstract

Abstract The objective of the study is to establish the prevalence of mobbing in workers through the application of the Cisneros scale. The research is observational, descriptive, and cross-sectional, the sample consisted of 60 workers from public and private institutions, who voluntarily agreed to participate by filling out the questionnaire provided. The self-administered Cisneros scale was applied, consisting of 43 items that assess psychological harassment behaviors. According to the criterion of whether the worker had been a victim of at least one of the forms of psychological mistreatment described in the Cisneros scale, continuously during the last 6 months, it was determined that 18 % of workers had been victims of workplace harassment; no significant differences were found in the presence of psychological harassment by sex. An analysis of the presence of each behavior indicating harassment at work was carried out, both in the sample of harassed and non-harassed workers, and statistically significant differences were found between the two samples (p=.000), in the number of harassment strategies suffered. Forty-six percent of workers reported that they were harassed at work by bosses or supervisors and 35 % by coworkers. Workplace harassment is an increasingly visible problem in our society; therefore, it is important to carry out studies on this problem that identify the degrees, levels, and forms that this practice adopts, as well as the establishment of laws and interpersonal and institutional norms that act to prevent this phenomenon.

Keywords

• harassment at work, workers, cisneros scale.