ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Psychiatry
Sec. Mood Disorders
Volume 16 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fpsyt.2025.1534511
Workplace Violence and Its Strong AssociaƟon with Depression aAmong Brazilian Workers: Insights from a NaƟonal Survey
Provisionally accepted
Alexandre Faisal-Cury1
Alicia Matijasevich1
Daniel Maurício de Oliveira Rodrigues1
Karen M Tabb2*
Maria Fernanda Peres1- 1Departamento de Medicina Preventiva da Faculdade de Medicina FMUSP, Universidade de Sao Paulo, Sao Paulo, SP, BR., Sao Paulo, SP, Brazil
- 2University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Champaign, United States
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Objective: To investigate the association between workplace violence and depression among Brazilian workers. Methods: A cross-sectional study using data from the Brazilian National Survey (PNS, 2019), a population-based study. A sample of 52,475 workers (18–98 years old; N = 22,797 women and 29,678 men) answered a questionnaire with sociodemographic data, workplace violence (psychological and physical or sexual) in the last 12 months and the Patient Health Questionnaire-9. Logistic regression models were performed and adjusted for sociodemographic factors. All analyses were conducted using weighted and stratified data by gender. Results: The prevalence of depression in this group of workers was 15.8% for women and 5.7% for men. Psychological and physical/sexual violence at work were reported by 4.4% and 0.5% among women and by 4.9% and 0.6% among men, respectively. All types of violence were significantly associated with depression for women (psychological: OR: 3.37, 95% CI 2.31–4.93 and physical/sexual: OR: 2.44, 95% CI 1.15–5.15) and for men (psychological: OR: 4.07, 95% CI 3.13–5.27 and physical/sexual: OR: 3.88, 95% CI 1.06–5.27). Both types of workplace violence interacted with gender without differences between men and women. Conclusion: Workplace violence is associated with depression in both sexes. Preventive and management strategies for workplace violence are recommended.
Keywords: Workplace Violence, Violence at work, depressionve symptoms, Mentalhealth, Workers, occupaƟonal health, exposures, Work-related exposure
Received: 26 Nov 2024; Accepted: 12 Sep 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Faisal-Cury, Matijasevich, Rodrigues, Tabb and Peres. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence: Karen M Tabb, ktabb@illinois.edu
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