The now-defunct Swedish clinic, "ViolenÒ, specialized in treating patients with the diagnosis PTSD after years of heavy mobbing in the workplaces. The 64 patients, described here, were the first 64 patients who came to this clinic. What kind of patients were they? What occupational branches did they represent? In what mental and physical condition did they arrive? This will be discussed in two sections below regarding the patients bio- and socio-economic situation (see below) as well as their diagnostical data.

THE PATIENT´S BIO- AND SOCIO-ECONOMIC DATA

The number of patients and gender information: Of the 64 patients, 20 (31%) were men and 44 (69%) women. The gender distribution cannot be interpreted in respect to conditions on a national scale, and indicates only the percentual distribution between men and women among the patients who happened to be referred to us.

Age: The majority of the patients were between 41 and 50 years old (53% or 34 individuals). 23%, or 15 individuals, were between 51 and 60 years of age. 13%, or 8 individuals, are between 31 and 40 years. 5%, or 3 individuals, were either over 61 years old or under 30 respectively. For one individual, age information is missing. A correlation between age and gender indicates that women and men had the same age distribution.

Position: Of 14 individuals, 22%, had work leadership assignments, the other did not.

Occupation: The table below shows patient affiliation in 11 occupational groups. These constitute a summary of the trade survey in Sweden's statistical yearbook (1994). This yearbook´s table 204 deals with the gainfully employed population according to branches of business or industry in November 1991). The column on the right gives the expected percentage according to the country's population. The left column shows the patients´ occupational affiliations.

Table: The patients' trade affiliation compared with that of the gainfully employed population's trade affiliation in Sweden. The patient group (64 persons) is not representative for Swedish conditions.

It must be pointed out that public administration and social work (which include care of children and the elderly), health care, and work in religious organizations (which includes the Lutheran Swedish church) are overrepresented regarding the number of mobbing victims, whereas industrial companies (manufacturing and mechanical industry), trade and stockroom work together with other branches of business or industry are underrepresented. Our patient group was thus not nationally representative for all employees diagnosed with PTSD due to victimization at work or other reasons. Other studies show, nevertheless, trends that do correspond (Leymann, 1992a, 1992b, 1992c, 1992e, Leymann & Gustafsson in print, Leymann & Tallgren 1989, Leymann & Lindroth 1992).

Diagnosis: In 59 individuals, PTSD was diagnosed; the remaining 5 suffered from dystymi (popularly expressed as psychological burnout). These 5 had the same scores in the PTSD categories B to E, but lacked a traumatic course of events in their occupational situations.

The patients' average strain period: By "strain time" I mean the length of time during which the patients were subjected to mobbing activities resulting in emotional strain. The strain time that the patients had to experience was very long. This period was estimated from the time at which the patient's psychosocial working environment had become mentally disturbing until it became traumatic (see the chronological description of mobbing phases).

In the table below, it can be seen that only 15% of the patients had a strain period of less than one year. Just as many, namely 15% had a strain period exceeding 8 years! Most of the patients, 54%, had a strain period between 2 and 8 years. There was no difference between women and men.

Table: Strain period (mobbing) in number of months and according to sex (n=61, 3 drop outs)

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