Incivility, bullying, and poor health and well-being among students: a Swedish national study in higher education institutions
2024 (English)In: Frontiers in Public Health, E-ISSN 2296-2565, Vol. 12
Article in journal (Refereed) Published
Abstract [en]
Objective: Exposure to incivility and bullying among students in highereducation institutions may have detrimental health and well-being outcomes.Nevertheless, the mechanism and interconnected pathways through whichincivility and bullying are linked with poor health and well-being remain largelyunexplored. The aim of this study is to investigate the relationships betweenincivility, bullying, and poor health and well-being among students in highereducation institutions in Sweden, and whether gender influences theserelationships. Furthermore, we examine whether bullying plays a mediating rolein the relationship between incivility and poor health and well-being.Methods: We analyzed a cross-sectional dataset of students drawn from 38universities that are members of the association of Swedish higher educationinstitutions. The data were collected from May to July 2021, covering 11,162women and 6,496 men. Confirmatory factor analysis and structural equationmodeling (SEM) were utilized to estimate the relationships between incivility,bullying, and poor health and well-being. Additionally, multigroup analysis wasapplied to estimate the interactive effect of gender in these relationships.Results: Reports of both incivility and bullying were more prevalent amongwomen than men. The results showed that incivility had direct relationshipswith both bullying ( )0.578, 0.01β = <p and poor health and well-being( )0.301, 0.01β = <p . However, the relationship between bullying and poorhealth and well-being was not significant. There were statistically significantgender differences in the relationships between incivility, bullying, and poorhealth and well-being ( ( )2 23 179.18, 0.01)χ∆ = <p . Nevertheless, bullying didnot significantly mediate the relationship between incivility and poor health andwell-being.Conclusion: The current study demonstrates that governments, universityauthorities, and policymakers must consider gender differences in incivility andbullying when developing policies and interventions intended to reduce these kinds of behaviors in organizations.
Place, publisher, year, edition, pages
2024. Vol. 12
Keywords [en]
incivility, bullying, health and well-being, gender, mediation, moderation, structural equation model, students
National Category
Health Sciences
Identifiers
URN: urn:nbn:se:mdh:diva-68782DOI: 10.3389/fpubh.2024.1400520ISI: 001353488800001PubMedID: 39540093Scopus ID: 2-s2.0-85208790832OAI: oai:DiVA.org:mdh-68782DiVA, id: diva2:1909603
2024-10-312024-10-312025-10-10Bibliographically approved