Bullying and Lower Urinary Tract Symptoms: Why the Pediatric Urologist Should Care about School Bullying

Abstract

Bullying has become a social plague associated with various deleterious outcomes. We hypothesized that pediatric lower urinary tract symptoms could be associated with exposure to bullying. We assessed exposure to school bullying via the Setting the Record Straight bullying questionnaire in children 8 to 11 years old being evaluated for lower urinary tract symptoms at our pediatric urology clinic. Lower urinary tract symptoms were quantified with the Vancouver Symptom Score. Children 8 to 11 years old presenting for pediatric well visits also completed the questionnaires. Linear regression assessed the relationship between Vancouver Symptom Score and bullying score. Categorical variables were compared by chi-square test, while continuous variables were compared using the Student t-test. A total of 113 children at the urology clinic and 63 children in the primary care setting consented to participate. There were significant differences between the 2 populations, including gender and race, with significantly more perpetrators of bullying in the primary care group (7.9% vs 0.9%, p = 0.02). When looking specifically at the urology group, there was a significant association between Vancouver Symptom Score and self-perceived (p <0.001) and peer perceived (p <0.001) victimization scores. In the primary care group there was also a significant association between Vancouver Symptom Score and self-perceived (p = 0.01) and peer perceived (p = 0.001) bullying perpetrator scores. Of children seen at the primary care office 33% had a significant Vancouver Symptom Score. Although bullying exposure is multifactorial, we found that Vancouver Symptom Score can be associated with bullying victimization and perpetrator scores.