Abstract

Despite a global recent interest in this matter, researchers have not developed, or validated scales focused on workplace bullying or destructive leadership in Chile. There are antecedents of workplace violence in the country, and the relationship with psychological distress is worldwide documented. The present study aimed to provide evidence of validity based on the internal structure and relationship with other variables of the Negative Acts Questionnaire-Revised (NAQ-R) and the Destructive Leadership Scale (CDLS). A survey was applied to a multi occupational sample of 1995 civil servants of the main metropolitan areas of Chile: Santiago, Valparaiso, and Concepcion. Responses were analyzed through exploratory and descriptive statistics, Confirmatory Factor Analysis for internal structure, and Logistic Regression for bindings with psychological distress as a criterion, adjusting on confounding variables. The CDLS scale obtained acceptable fit indices once one item was deleted (WLS?2(64, N= 1847) = 642, p<.0,001; CMIN/df= 10.0; CFI= 0.966; GFI= 0.993; aGFI= 0.987; RMSEA = 0.070; 90% IC [0.065, 0.075] NNFI= 0.959), distinguishing between destructive (CR [composite reliability]= 0.81) and constructive leaderships CR= 0.91). The NAQ-R showed properties that make it useful in the Chilean context as a unidimensional measure (WLS?2(206, N= 1927) = 648, p<.0.001; CMIN/df= 3.1; CFI= 0.969; GFI= 0.994; aGFI= 0.990; RMSEA = 0.033; 90% IC [0.030, 0.036] NNFI= 0.965; CR= 0.98). A higher prevalence of Distress in the presence of bullying (PR [Prevalence ratio]=1.03, 95%IC [confidence intervals] 1.02, 1.04) or destructive leadership was found (PR= 1.09, 95%IC 1.06, 1.13). Studies may obtain prevalence by empirical classification methods. © Copyright 2023 by Psykhe