Mobbing, a rising issue in the occupational health area, has recently been paid attention more and more in the academic and business settings. Mobbing is a series of action having multidimensional features socially and psychologically, and it is frequent in occupational environment. Mobbing may present itself as behaviors, words, acts, gestures, or writings that affect personality, dignity, physical, and psychological integrity. Early 1990s were the time studies about mobbing started to be done, indicating its negative effects on both individual and the working place. These extend from stress and depression to psychosomatic disorders, and even chronicle diseases and cardiovascular problems. Workplace mobbing is repetitive, unreasonable malicious behavior directed toward an employee or a group of employees, that creates risk to health and safety. It may manifest as intimidation, physical violence, discrimination, threats, social isolation, and destabilization. The most prominent result is lack of continuity. Organizational problems, time pressure, lack of leadership and task definition etc. are defined to be potential risk factors. For prevention, there must be an organized intervention including a strategically approach towards mobbing and a positive environment at workplace. There is a need for standardization, and studies to define and evaluate mobbing behavior in order to make a comparison between different cultures and occupations. In this review article mobbing was examined with the view of public health.
Key words: Mobbing, bullying, occupational health, psychosocial risk, work stress Article Language: Turkish English
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