Bullying and Mental Health in Academic Workplaces: The Problem and the Solution - Michael Wm. MacGregor Michael Wm. MaGregor*, Elizabeth Quinlan*, Glenis Joyce*, and Ailsa Watkinson** * University of Saskatchewan, ** University of Regina Workplaces are common sites of bullying. The sense of shame that most victims experience leads to low self-reporting rates, which further reinforces the unspoken sanctioning of bullying within a workplace. Prevalence rates of workplace bullying range from as low as 2% when self-reported to 25% when operationally measured. A wide range of health outcomes from bullying has been identified, including depression, post-traumatic stress disorder, headaches, chronic fatigue syndrome, etc. Moreover, workplace bullying has also been found to be a factor in purposeful damaging of employer property, squandering of materials, and counterproductive behaviours which result in considerable costs. Physical violence and sexual harassment are violations that have historically been considered in Occupational, Health and Safety, and Human Rights legislation while workplace bullying has not. The introduction of clauses pertaining to the prevention of compensation for 'psychological harassment' in Quebec's Labour Standards Act marks the first legislative initiatives in Canada to deal with workplace bullying. As public sector organizations, universities face increased pressure to conform to a 'business ethic' and many of the consequences are likely contributory factors of workplace bullying: The loss of middle managers and other personnel trained in conflict resolution, reduction of internal job ladders and other mechanisms providing job security, a tendency towards autocratic managerial styles, etc. Universities in Australia have researched and taken significant steps to combat workplace bullying, however, to our knowledge there is no research on bullying in Canadian academic workplaces This research project has objectives: 1) to identify the dimensions of bullying in the academic workplace, 2) to design and implement a staged intervention protocol aimed at mitigating the mental health outcomes from workplace bullying, to be administered to three broad occupational groups represented in the academic workplace - professional, administrative/technical, and clerical/service, 3) to measure the effects of the employee-driven interventions upon their mental health using both qualitative and quantitative analyses, and 4), to promote progressive change in the organizational culture of the intervention sites and other workplaces through multiple knowledge translation activities. We will accomplish these objectives through three studies. The first study will consist of focus groups to qualitatively understand the nature and extent of academic workplace bullying. The second study will quantitatively assess the extent of workplace bullying experienced by participants, provide them with information on workplace bullying (as a psychoeducational intervention) and measure their physical and mental health both before and after they are provided with information on workplace bullying. The third study will be an extension of study two but rather than using a psychoeducational approach we will incorporate individual and group meetings to discuss strategies to deal with and counteract workplace bullying. Again, physical and mental health will be measured both before and after the intervention. As we have collaborators from both the University of Saskatchewan and Regina we will be running these studies at each university to assess the generalizability of our findings. To accomplish these objectives we have Jim Turk, Executive Director of the Canadian Association of University Teachers, Larry Hubich, President of the Saskatchewan Federation of Labour, and the presidents of all three unions at the University of Saskatchewan as collaborators. As well, discussions are underway to gain the same union support from the University of Regina. It is our intention to extend the team to other jurisdictions (e.g., University of Waterloo, McMaster University, etc.) and ultimately use the Saskatchewan-based project as a model to direct subsequent projects in other jurisdictions by other team members.