The Impact of Workplace Bullying and Organizational Incivility on Nurses' Emotional Distress: Exploring Parallel...

Workplace bullying and organizational incivility are widespread psychosocial hazards in healthcare, putting nurses at a heightened risk for emotional distress. While prior research has demonstrated their harmful effects, the mechanisms through which these stressors influence psychological outcomes are still not well understood. Guided by the Conservation of Resources (COR) theory, this study aimed to investigate whether life satisfaction and work and social adjustment function as parallel mediators linking workplace mistreatment to emotional distress among nurses. A cross-sectional survey was conducted among 1355 registered nurses from 12 hospitals. Participants completed validated measures of workplace bullying, organizational incivility, life satisfaction, work and social adjustment, and emotional distress. Structural Equation Modelling (SEM) was performed using maximum likelihood estimation to evaluate direct and indirect pathways. Mediation effects were tested using bias-corrected bootstrapping with 5000 resamples. Both workplace bullying and organizational incivility were significantly associated with lower life satisfaction and greater work and social impairment. Life satisfaction negatively predicted emotional distress, whereas work and social impairment showed a positive association. The final SEM demonstrated excellent fit indices (χ²/df = 1.467; RMSEA = 0.024; CFI = 0.98), supporting full mediation via the two parallel pathways. Indirect effects of workplace bullying and organizational incivility on emotional distress were significant. Findings highlight dual cognitive-evaluative and functional-behavioural mechanisms through which workplace mistreatment contributes to emotional distress, aligning with COR theory. However, the cross-sectional design limits causal inference, and the reliance on self-report measures may introduce common method bias; these limitations should be considered when interpreting the findings.