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Abstract Introduction The aim was to estimate the prevalence of moral harassment among medical staff and to describe its clinical aspects. Methods This cross-sectional study involved a representative sample of 337 physicians with at least 6 months of seniority. The survey was based on a self-administered questionnaire including: socio-demographic and professional data, job satisfaction, stress, mental health indicators, and Leymann Inventory of Psychological Terror. Moral harassment was defined by exposure to at least one workplace violence situation, at least once a week and for more than 6 months during the last 12 months. Results The average age was 32.9 ± 7.7 years and 52.2% were female. The average seniority was 6.6 + 6.7 years. Physicians in training and teaching staff represented 63.5% and 18.1% respectively. During the last 12 months, work stoppage for more than 8 days and consumption of psychotropic drugs for depression or anxiety disorders were reported respectively by 8.3% and 17.8% with a significant female predominance. 52.8% have been exposed to at least one bullying situation during the last 12 months (61.7% among physicians in training and 46,8% among associates). Its direction was downward (38.6%) or horizontal (29.1%). The prevalence of moral harassment was 16.2%, of which 77.8% were physicians in training. Job satisfaction and self-declared stress were reported by 49.6% (14.8% among the harassed against 56.2% among the non-harassed) and 26.4 (87% among the harassed and 14.9% among the non-harassed) respectively Discussion and conclusion Organizational and managerial deficiencies were the main causes of bullying. Preventive measures are needed to improve the mental health of physicians
Elaoudi et al. (Mon,) studied this question.