Background Actually, work plays an important role on human life and societies, meaning it is essential that job must be perform in the best conditions. Thus, it will promote workers’ quality of life and a better service quality provided by the organisation. Workplace bullying is frequent among nurses, affecting them negatively and having repercussions in organisations and patients (Borges, 2012; Purpora et al., 2015).

Aims To describe nurses’ perceptions about workplace bullying concept, about its impact on nurses’ behaviour as victims and on their personal life.

Method The study focused on nurses of Porto, having 10 or more years of professional activity. Through snowball method, 12 participants were selected. A semi-structured interview were done with these nurses. Data were analysed using content analysis, thematic type, according to Bardin (2010).

Results Regarding workplace bullying’s perception, the majority of nurses didn’t referred the two main dimensions of this phenomenon, namely, the frequency and duration of aggressive behaviour. To confront the offender, to ignore, the informational support, the emotional support and antidepressant medication were behaviours referred by the victims. Stress, anxiety, sadness, irritability, intent to change to another service, tiredness, insomnia, digestive disorders and isolation were some mental health consequences of this phenomenon referred by victims.

Conclusions Workplace bullying is a phenomenon which has a negative impact on nurses’ personal lives. Education and information about workplace bullying and nurses’ training to manage stress elicited by this situation and to deal with bullying acts, are proposals to mitigate its consequences, in order to promote nurses’ quality of life.