Resilience and Mobbing Among Nurses in Emergency Departments: A Cross-Sectional Study

Moral harassment (mobbing) in healthcare, particularly among nurses, remains a persistent issue with detrimental effects on mental health, resilience, and quality of life.

We examine the relationship between the resilience of nurses working in Emergency Departments (EDs) and how these factors influence experiences of workplace mobbing.

This cross-sectional study included 90 nurses from four public hospitals in Greece's 5th Health District. Data were collected between October 2023 and March 2024 using the WHOQOL-BREF, Workplace Psychologically Violent Behaviors (WPVB) scale and the Connor-Davidson Resilience Scale (CD-RISC). The sample consisted primarily of full-time nurses (84.3% female; mean age = 43.1 years), with 21.1% reporting chronic conditions. Most participants were married (80.0%) and had children (74.4%), typically two (56.1%). Statistical analyses-conducted using SPSS version 27.0-included descriptive statistics, Pearson and Spearman correlations, multiple linear regression, and mediation analysis, with significance set at p < 0.05.

Resilience was moderate (mean = 66.38%; Cronbach's α = 0.93) and positively correlated with all WHOQOL-BREF domains-physical, psychological, social, and environmental (r = 0.30-0.40)-but not with the overall WHOQOL-BREF. The mean overall WHOQOL-BREF score was 68.4%, with the lowest scores observed in the environmental domain (mean = 53.76%). Workplace mobbing levels were low to moderate (mean WPVB score = 17.87), with subscale reliabilities ranging from α = 0.78 to 0.95. Mobbing was negatively associated with social relationships and the environmental WHOQOL-BREF (ρ = -0.23 to -0.33). Regression analysis showed that cohabitation and higher resilience significantly predicted better WHOQOL-BREF outcomes, whereas mobbing was not a significant predictor. Mediation analysis (bootstrap N = 5000) indicated no significant indirect effect of resilience in the relationship between mobbing and WHOQOL-BREF.

Resilience was identified as a key protective factor for nurses' quality of life in emergency care settings. Although workplace mobbing was present at low-to-moderate levels, it was negatively associated with specific WHOQOL-BREF domains. Enhancing mental resilience among nurses may serve as a valuable strategy to mitigate the psychological effects of moral harassment in healthcare environments.