Discovering bullying and other stressors: a qualitative study on Italian farms.

Aim The purpose of this research is to investigate the main psychosocial risk factors within agricultural sector and to detect to which extent organizational and productive context can influence the prevalence rates relating to such phenomena as distress, conflict and workplace bullying in line with work environment hypothesis (Einarsen, Raknes, Matthiesen, 1994). Methods Between 2012 and 2013 were conducted 7 focus groups involving 38 farms from North-Est of Italy, selected so as to include all of the main productions and societal forms existing there; moreover, 7 semi-structured explorative interviews were administered face to face with the 7 main trade unions in the sector. All data collected via a qualitative method during focus groups were integrally transcribed with the aim of proposing new and old categories which would have emerged from the interaction of participants. The use of content analysis made it possible to formulate 300 statements that were then clustered through recurrent issues technique, in a draft tool of 54 items. Results By means of thorough qualitative analysis risk factors emerged from the study were classified on 3 different levels in relation to 3 different contexts taken as a reference: organization, nature and society. Work environment is defined by the co-presence both of physical stressors linked to the job characteristics and the state of the machinery as well as by human components linked to communication, social interaction and clarity of working roles. Productive environment, namely nature, is characterized by variables related to work location and stressors like seasonality resulting from the timing of the nature only for the portion affecting the economic outcomes. Finally, the widest social environment strongly influences the sector by means of variables mainly connected to excess of burocracy and control as perceived by farmers in relation to the other EU countries even highlighting the importance of equity factor generated by the relationship with the global market. Furthermore, some "cross-stressors" such as the market and fashion are able to raise the effects of other stressors. Employees in farming seems to have an high degree of individual autonomy perhaps because more than 90% of agricultural organizations are direct managed by the owners, and refers positive values about topics such as work-life balance, passion in what they do or full discretion in their life choices. Conclusions In the agricultural sector lacking of scientific literature on the psychosocial risks, the research findings support hypothesis that a specific agricultural environment could affect the level of social stressors like workplace bullying, conflict and distress in line with work environment hypothesis that attributes the origin of these stressors to negative social factors being previously present within social contexts. How these variables affect italian farms and in what extent they modify the prevalence of social stressors in relation to the different productions and societal forms, it will be outlined in the second part of this study still in progress and will have both to test the measuring tool validity and to estimate the goodness of the structural model supported by it.