Association of workplace bullying and burnout with nurses’ suicidal ideation in Bangladesh

Suicidal ideation is a complex phenomenon influenced by several predisposing, contextual, and mediating factors that seem more common among healthcare workers, especially nurses. We investigated the association of bullying and burnout with suicidal ideation among Bangladeshi nurses and identified the associated factors. We conducted a cross-sectional study among 1264 nurses in Bangladesh between February 2021 and July 2021. We applied a modified Poisson regression model with robust error variance to determine the association of bullying and burnout with suicidal ideation. Among 1264 nurses, the female was 882 (70.02%), and the mean age was 28.41 (SD = 5.54) years. The prevalence of high levels of suicidal ideation was 13.26%. In the Poison regression model, high risk bullying (RR = 6.22, 95% CI 3.13–12.38), targeted to bullying (RR = 7.61, 95% CI 3.53–16.38), and burnout (RR = 8.95, 95% CI 2.84–28.20) were found to be significantly associated with suicidal ideation. Furthermore, we found significant interaction between workplace bullying and burnout with suicidal ideation (p < 0.05). The high prevalence of bullying, burnout, suicidal ideation, and their association indicate an unsafe workplace for the nurses. Initiatives are needed to make a favorable work environment to improve nurses' overall mental health and reduce suicide ideation.