RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN WORKPLACE HARASSMENT AND POSTTRAUMATIC STRESS SYMPTOMS AMONG PAKISTANI FEMALE HEALTHCARE PROFESSIONALS

Abstract

The current research was conducted to investigate relationship between workplace harassment and posttraumatic stress symptoms among Pakistani female healthcare professionals. Survey research design was used. The purposive sample was composed of 300 female healthcare professionals within age range from 20 to 59 years (100 doctors, 100 house-job doctors and 100 certified nurses). The sample was drawn from five different public hospitals (Mayo Hospital, Ganga Ram Hospital, Jinnah Hospital, Lady Willington Hospital and Sheikh Zayed Hospital) of Lahore city. Written consent was individually obtained from all the participants. Björkquist, Osterman and Hjelt- Beck‘s (1992) Work Harassement Scale (WHS), Kamal and Tariq ̳s (1997) Sexual Harassment Experience Questionnaire (SHEQ) and Weathers, Litz, Herman, Huska and Keane‘s (1993) PTSD Civilian Checklist (PCL-C) were individually administered to the participants to determine their reported workplace harassment and posttraumatic stress symptoms. Written permission was granted by the authors to the researcher for use of WHS (1992); SHEQ (1997); and PCL-C (1993) in the current research project. The SPSS (version 14.0) was used. Pearson Product Moment Correlation Coefficient was performed to determine the relationship between workplace harassment and posttraumatic stress symptoms reported by the female healthcare professionals. The findings suggested significant positive relationship between general workplace harassment and posttraumatic stress symptoms (r = .52, **p < .01); and sexual harassment and posttraumatic stress symptoms (r = .65, **p < .01). Hierarchical Multiple Regression analysis was performed to determine the impact of demographic variables (age, education, job status, job experience, monthly income, marital status) and workplace harassment on posttraumatic stress symptoms. The results indicated that workplace harassment and sexual harassment were thestrongest predictors for posttraumatic stress symptoms, whereas, none of the demographic variables accounted for variance. Furthermore, the results suggest statistically significant differences in posttraumatic stress symptoms reported by all the participants who were exposed to serious general and sexual workplace harassment, moderate workplace harassment and minimal workplace harassment. The findings of this research would promote our understanding of the relationship among workplace harassment, posttraumatic stress symptoms and the demographic variables; such as age, job status, education and marital status of the female doctors, house-job doctors and nurses in the Pakistani healthcare system. Furthermore, these findings have implications for the prevention of workplace harassment and posttraumatic stress symptoms as well as introduction of timely interventions for the promotion of mental health of the victims of workplace harassment in the Pakistani healthcare system.