According to the World Health Organization (WHO), “Health” has been defined as “a complete state of physical, mental, and social well-being and not merely the absence of disease or infirmity” (World Health Organization, 1948) . Taking into consideration this classical definition, stressful working conditions have been identified as a major, high-risk factor not only for physical, but also for psychological health as well (Ndjaboue et al., 2012) . This identification is of crucial importance, especially in the background of contemporary socio-economical circumstances.

For the last decades, employee’s health has attracted the interest of the academic community, due to the close relationship of the Person per se and its occupational environment. However, more recently researchers have extended this declaration, so as to include analyses of social and organizational characteristics of the work environment, such as employees’ perceptions/appraisals of fairness in the organization, denoted as “organizational justice” (Ηerr et al., 2015; Robbins, 2012).

Employees place a high premium on justice, because it is relevant for instrumental reasons (e.g., fairness ensures that rewards are controllable and predictable), relational reasons (e.g., fairness indicates that recipients are valued and respected), and moral reasons (e.g., fair treatment is a moral imperative that everyone is owed). It is therefore not surprising that the fairness of work outcomes, procedures, and interpersonal treatment is able to predict a variety of employee attitudes (e.g., job satisfaction, organizational commitment) and behaviors (e.g., task performance, citizenship behavior) (Colquitt et al.; Robbins et al., 2012 ; Yang et al., 2014), not to mention that the allostatic load coming from the negative energy at work has detrimental and direct mental and physiological costs (stress and anxiety disorders, chronic pain and fatigue etc., McEwen & Wingfield, 2003 ). For example, Tepper (2000) examined data from 362 employees and found that unfair supervisor behavior was positively associated with employee anxiety, depression and emotional exhaustion. Moreover, Grandey et al. (2004) surveyed 198 call centre employees and found that experiencing customer aggression was perceived as threatening and stressful, and was associated with heightened levels of emotional exhaustion, emotional regulation and work absences.

The Perceived Unfairness Model (Jackson et al., 2006) proposed that the effects of perceiving unfairness might accumulate and compromise physical health. Another relevant theoretical framework is that of the Fairness Theory (Folger & Cropanzano, 2001) . According to its theoretical axioms and practical implications, fairness is an inner human drive, taking place into exchangeable situational contexts, a drive which motives individuals to strive for justice, as well as an intense desire to hold someone accountable throughout expressing justice judgements and morality standards. In parallel, fairness is a three-fold transactional state i.e. the perceived occurred harm, the following reactions or consequences, and the organizational effects (that is to say those actions violated a personal or social ethical values).

A typology of fairness as Colquitt (2001) mentioned, is consistent of as many as four types. Distributive justice is an evaluation of the total prices and rewards received by the employee. Procedural justice refers to the fairness of decision-making processes. Interpersonal justice refers to the latitude, the sense of respect as it has been taken by the employee, and last but not least, informational justice refers to the quantity quality of information provided by the organization.

Another worthwhile facet of Interpersonal Justice in terms of unfairness is the Interactional Justice, which sends the clearest signal of social devaluation and rejection, as it entails social interactions characterized by a lack of respect and propriety (Yang et al. 2013) . Greenberg (2004) concluded that interactional unfairness seems to be the most stressful type of unfairness. Based on the principles of the social self-preservation theory, exposure to the interactional unfairness should therefore trigger the release of cortisol, a fact of high importance for the human homeostasis.

The Social self-preservation theory (Dickerson & Kemeny, 2004) elicits the effects of interactional unfairness on cortisol activity and delinquent behavior. These theory standpoints that some people’s social self-preservation system is sensitive to potential threats of their social self. For example, when they feel threatened, this system cascades physiological, psychological, and behavioral responses so as to manage the threat including HPA activation and the release of cortisol (Dickerson & Kemeny, 2004) . So cortisol, once released, mobilizes resources, and tunes activity in other physiological systems in order to respond to the short-term demands of threats (acute stress) (Sapolsky, 2004) . As Dickerson & Kemeny (2004) proposed in their meta-analysis, suggests acute, assessed social threats lead to the strongest cortisol activity. So, a deep understanding of the health-related outcomes of unfairness necessitates a thorough examination of physiological mechanisms, such as the release of cortisol by the hypothalamus-pituitary-adrenal―HPA axis (Yang et al., 2013) . The HPA Axis acts as a counter regulatory system through its release of the anti-inflammatory hormone cortisol. In contrast with acute stress, chronic stress has been shown to reduce the sensitivity of leukocytes to these anti-inflammatory activities, variously denoted as glucocorticoid resistance, impaired the action of glucocorticoid sensitivity (Cohen et al., 2012; Miller et al., 2002) .

Therefore, there is growing evidence that perceived unfairness is a factor that plays an essential role in the physical health of the professional class of workers. Longitudinal studies have empirically linked unfair treatment to myocardial infarctions, definite angina, cardiovascular deaths and many other milder physical symptoms ( Elovainio et al., 2002 ; Ford, 2014 ; Robbins et al., 2012 ).

In this quantitative systematic review, we also examined the related terms of organizational justice and reciprocity. To be more specified, Organizational justice could be defined as employees’ appraisals of fairness as they are received by the organization. In this concept, organizational justice and psychological contract are similar, yet distinct concepts ( Ndjaboue et al., 2012 ; Robbins et al., 2012 ). The term includes a procedural component (decision making processes), which refers to the fairness and consistency of decision-making procedures, as well as a relational component, which refers to the fairness and respect with which employees are treated by their supervisors (interactional justice). Organizational Justice captures the social dimensions of the occupational environment, and establishes, often, conceptualizations of work stress (Bedi, 2012; Herr, 2015). Furthermore, as determinant of social stress, has been identified as a predictor of poor health and well-being ( Ndjaboue et al., 2012 ; Robbins et al., 2012 ) Scholars on organizational justice have demonstrated a strong negative association with cardiovascular diseases (Herr et al., 2015) . Moreover, it seems that injustice is suggested to be more harmful to white-collar workers than to blue-collar workers because of a different type of relationship with their superiors and context of the organization, this means that the relationship of white-collar worker tends to be more strongly characterized by obligations and expectations beyond the formal contract (Herr et al., 2015) .

Making a reference to the meaning of Reciprocity, the term is defined as a challenging theoretical and practical spectrum ranging from under-benefitted reciprocity (receiving less than deserving) to balanced reciprocity (when the person perceives that there is a balance between) to over-benefitted reciprocity (that is to say receiving more than deserving) (Taris et al., 2002) .

As for the consequences of unfairness, we could mention that, negative psychological occupational climate may cause depression and detachment from one’s mental processes, and victims are more likely to limit their involvement with the organization ( Bedi et al., 2012 ; Robbins, 2012).

So, Interpersonal aggression tend to be emerged as a dangerous stressor that may trigger a psychological and/or physiological stress response (Glomb & Cortina, 2006) and elicit stress and strain in such a way that employees struggle to make sense of and cope with the stressful event (Bowling & Beehr, 2006) . Moreover, workplace aggression has been defined as a form of behavior directed to produce physical, verbal or psychological harm to the employees or the organization itself (Baron & Neuman, 1996). Research on workplace aggression clearly demonstrates its association with a variety of negative individual and organizational consequences including feelings of anxiety, anger, depressed moods job dissatisfaction, turnover, and burnout (Bedi et al., 2012) .

On Burnout, literature converges to define it as a state of physical, emotional and mental exhaustion caused by chronic job stressors ( Pines & Aronson, 1988 ; Schaufeli & Enzmann, 1998 ). Early research had been focused on caregiving and other helping professions ( Maslach, 1982 ; Leiter & Maslach, 1988 ), but during the last decades, there has been increased interest and evidence based affirmation, that burnout is a pervasive phenomenon, that occurs in almost every professional field (Bakker, Demerouti, & Schaufeli, 2002) . The three “dimensions” of burnout are: emotional exhaustion (depletion of emotional resources), depersonalization (cynicism) and diminished personal accomplishment (reduced personal efficacy) ( Maslach, 1982 ; Leiter &Maslach, 1988 ; Schaufeli & Bakker, 2004 ). Empirical data clearly emphasize its association with a variety of individual and environmental or organizational predictors ( Brewer & Clippard, 2002 ; Leiter & Maslach, 1988 ; Maslach et al., 2001; Schaufeli & Enzmann, 1998 ). In contrast to the state of burnout, a “core of engagement” as the positive antithesis of it, has been highly supported with vigour (that is to say a high level of energy and resilience at work) and commitment (to say a sense of meaning of life, enthusiasm, inspiration, pride and challenge) as the antithetical dimensions to exhaustion and depersonalization and cynicism ( Moliner et al., 2012 ; Schaufeli et al., 2002).

All in all, psychiatric Morbidity have been assessed with HPQ (Health Problems Questionnaire) evaluating the 12-month prevalence of seven DSM-IV mental disorders and two DSM-III-R substance disorders: major depression, generalized anxiety disorder (GAD), specific phobia, social phobia, agoraphobia without panic, panic attack, obsessive-compulsive disorder, alcohol dependence, and drug dependence. In the context of this cross- sectional study, it has been found that psychiatric morbidity was higher among healthcare professionals with higher perceived injustice. The association between justice and psychiatric morbidity does not appear to be explained by psychosocial work characteristics, with the exception of job control, which made a modest contribution. In a study among Finnish hospital personnel (mostly women), an association between relational justice and psychiatric morbidity after having adjusted for job control and social support has been proven (Elovainio et al. 2002) . Similarly, another recent study, conducted on a cohort of British white-collar civil servants with a large proportion of men, demonstrated that justice into the occupational region, was an independent predictor of psychiatric morbidity and that the association weakened only slightly when adjusting for the effort-reward ratio (Gigantesco, 2011) .

Data were collected using Pubmed database and literature was searched with a following algorithm: (“psychological stress” OR distress) AND (fairness OR unfairness). The studies were first selected on the basis of their title and abstract. This was the first selective criterion. For practical reasons, articles had to be available only in English language. The studies selected for this review were those: (1) published between 2010 and 2015 (2) in a peer review journal, and (3) measured “Fairness” as an exposure factor at workplace. The studies that have been included here have to present detailed and main results. Therefore, abstracts and short report studies were not considered.

The data base search identified 88 articles. 37 articles were excluded because they were published before January 2010. We didn’t include articles that do not provide initial data, such as meta-analyses and systematic reviews and articles assessed as irrelevant to our subject, after reading either the abstract or the whole manuscript. Finally, 9 articles were remained to be reviewed.

The results of the aforementioned studies (Quantitative and Qualitative type of studies) are depicted and overviewed on table 1: