Asia Pacific Environmental and Occupational Health Journal

Introduction: Workplace bullying is hostile behavior that includes verbal and physical abuse while cyberbullying perceived negative acts perpetrated via technology. Workplace bullying issues have increased, contributing to its increasing occurrence by affecting physical and mental health. Employee bullying was found to have a ten-month long-term impact on their health, well-being and affects their work productivity. 

Objective: This study was conducted to determine the association between workplace bullying and cyberbullying with anxiety and depression among secondary school teachers in Federal Territory Kuala Lumpur. 

Method: This was a cross-sectional study which involved 309 respondents randomly selected among teachers in selected secondary schools. Data was gathered through an online self- administered questionnaires adapted from previous studies which consisted of five sections; socio-demographic and work characteristics, Short-Negative Acts Questionnaire (S-NAQ) to measure workplace bullying Workplace Cyberbullying Measure (WCM) to measure cyberbullying, Generalised Anxiety Disorder (GAD-7) to measure anxiety and Patient Health Questionnaire (PHQ-9) to measure depression. 

Result: The response rate was 90.1%. Findings showed that prevalence of reported workplace bullying and cyberbullying among the respondents were 3.9% and 5.2% respectively. The prevalence rate of anxiety was 10.4% while depression was 7.8%. Workplace bullying was found to be significantly correlated with anxiety. While both workplace bullying and cyberbullying were found to be significantly correlated with depression. 

Conclusion: Thus, school administration should do prompt intervention strategies to strengthen teachers’ coping skills in dealing with workplace bullying and cyberbullying to improve mental health among schoolteachers.

Keywords: Workplace bullying, Workplace Cyberbullying, Anxiety, Depression, Secondary school teachers