Exposure to workplace bullying, distress, and insomnia: The moderating role of the miR-146a genotype

Several lines of evidence show that systematic exposure to negative social acts at
the workplace i.e., workplace bullying, results in symptoms of depression and anxiety
among those targeted. However, little is known about the association between bullying,
inflammatory genes and sleep problems. In the present study, we examined the indirect
association between exposure to negative social acts and sleep through distress,
as moderated by the miR-146a genotype. The study was based on a nationally
representative survey of 1179 Norwegian employees drawn from the Norwegian Central
Employee Register by Statistics Norway. Exposure to workplace bullying was measured
with the 9-item version of Negative Acts Questionnaire – Revised (NAQ-R) inventory.
Seventeen items from Hopkins Symptom Checklist (HSCL-25) was used to measure
distress. Insomnia was assessed with three items reflecting problems with sleep onset,
maintenance of sleep and early morning awakening. Genotyping with regard to miR146a rs2910164, previously linked to inflammatory processes, was carried out using
Taqman assay. The data revealed that individuals systematically exposed to negative
social acts at the workplace reported higher levels of sleep problems than non-exposed
individuals. Moreover, the relationship between distress induced by exposure to negative
social acts and insomnia was significantly stronger for individuals with the miR-146a [...]