Workplace bullying and professional identity among male nurses: the mediating role of work engagement and the moderating effect of fear of negative evaluation

Workplace bullying poses a critical occupational hazard in nursing. The gender and relative scarcity of male nurses heighten their vulnerability to bullying, triggering burnout and eroding their professional identity. These consequences compromise nurse retention, ultimately threatening patient safety and care quality. This study investigated the impact of workplace bullying on male nurses’ professional identity through work engagement mediation and the fear of negative evaluation moderation, with the aim of informing supportive workplace interventions. From January to March 2025, a nonrandom convenience sampling methodology was utilized to recruit 369 male nursing professionals across nine tertiary-level general hospitals located within comparable geographic regions of Sichuan Province. The survey included questions on general demographic data as well as research-related scales: the Negative Acts Questionnaire-Revised (NAQ-R), the Nurses’ Professional Identity Scale (PIS), the Utrecht Work Engagement Scale (UWES), and the Brief Fear of Negative Evaluation Scale (BFNES). SPSS version 26.0 was used to organize and analyze the data. This study initially recruited a cohort of 400 male nurses across surveyed institutions, with 369 complete datasets meeting the inclusion criteria retained for final analysis, yielding a 92.25% valid response rate. Hierarchical regression analysis indicated that workplace bullying and work engagement were significant factors influencing professional identity (ΔR2 = 0.320). Work engagement demonstrated partial mediation, accounting for 46.41% of the total effect of workplace bullying (indirect effect = -0.413). Moderation analyses revealed that fear of negative evaluation significantly moderated two pathways: (a) the direct effect of workplace bullying on professional identity (β = 0.020, p = 0.027) and (b) the first-stage mediation pathway through work engagement (β = 0.032, p < 0.001). Johnson‒Neyman analyses identified critical thresholds for fear of negative evaluation: workplace bullying negatively predicted work engagement when the FNE was less than 44.30 and professional identity when the FNE was less than 45.09. These findings suggest that workplace bullying and work engagement are independently associated with male nurses’ professional identity. Work engagement may serve as a partial mediator, whereas fear of negative evaluation appears to moderate both direct and indirect associations. Given the cross-sectional design, causal interpretations should be made cautiously. Nonetheless, these results provide valuable insights for developing targeted workplace interventions to support male nurses in bullying-prone settings.