Workplace Harassment, Service Utilization, and Drinking

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DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): The goals of this study are: 1) to examine the importance of workplace harassment (WH) as a predictor of alcohol use and misuse over time, in the context of other risk and protective factors, in a nationally representative employed sample; 2) to compare the use of professional services by WH victims compared to non-victims; and 3) to investigate whether and how gender influences the relationships among these variables. We will focus on the roles that 1) mental health, health, and other types of services use, 2) work-related social support, 3) coping style and behavior, 4) tension-reduction drinking expectancies, and 5) history of abuse and harassment outside the workplace play in increasing or decreasing vulnerability to negative alcohol outcomes for WH victims over time. This study will be the first to 1) gather national data on WH, thereby allowing a generalizable test of the alcohol-related effects of WH found in other studies, and 2) incorporate multiple types of WH experiences, including sexual, racial, faith-based, and generalized harassment. Random digit dial telephone survey methodology will be used to conduct a two-wave panel study (baseline, 12 months) on a national sample of 2,500 employed adult men and women. The survey will address: WH experiences, general job and life stress, history of non-workplace harassment and abuse, alcohol consumption patterns, problem drinking, tension-reduction drinking expectancies, coping (e.g., actively addressing WH; elicitation of work-related social support; use of professional services), focus of and satisfaction with services, psychological distress, job satisfaction, and physical health. A variety of statistical techniques (e.g., mixed-effects regression, structural equation modeling) will be used to depict changes over time in WH experiences and drinking outcomes, and to depict the varied pathways through which WH impacts on deleterious drinking and other outcomes. Major long-term objectives are: 1) to add to the body of knowledge regarding psychosocial risk factors for problematic alcohol use; 2) to use this knowledge to develop generalizable treatment and intervention guidelines to a) address alcohol use and misuse in clients presenting with WH and job stress-related problems, and b) to minimize other workplace consequences of WH and alcohol use.