Talking behind their backs: Negative gossip and burnout in Hospitals

•Controlling for negative affect, negative gossip is positively related to burnout.•Negative gossip is negatively related to job engagement.•Controlling for burnout, negative gossip is positively related to suboptimal care.•Controlling for burnout, negative gossip is negatively related to patient safety.•Negative gossip is positively related to event reporting.

BackgroundGossip can both hinder and help in a hospital environment. Despite the fact that research indicated that it occurs most frequently in healthcare, it has not been studied in relation to other organizational manifestations such as burnout and engagement, or quality of care outcomes. We hypothesize that negative gossip, defined as negative evaluative talk about an absent third party would function as an indicator of organizational dysfunction.MethodsA quantitative survey was conducted among doctors, nurses and residents in Greece, Bulgaria, Romania, Turkey, Croatia and Republic of Macedonia (N = 532). Specifically, we examined the role of negative gossip, in relation to burnout, job engagement, suboptimal care and patient safety in public hospitals.ResultsResults indicate that, after controlling for negative affect, negative gossip is positively related to emotional exhaustion and depersonalization. Negative gossip negatively correlated with job engagement and patient safety and positively correlated with suboptimal care, even after controlling for burnout. Negative gossip was positively related to the number of event reporting.DiscussionGossip is an important aspect of organizational functioning. The degree to which negative gossip is a coping mechanism of healthcare professionals is discussed.