Abstract
BackgroundBeing a victim of bullying in school is clearly linked to various social, emotional, and behavioral problems including self-harm behavior. However, it is not known whether even occasional victimization has similar negative consequences and whether protective factors such as social support may prevent those harmful developments. The present study therefore focuses on the nonsuicidal self-injury (NSSI) and suicidal behavior (SB) in victims of bullying and the potentially moderating effect of parental monitoring.MethodsIn all, a cross-sectional sample of 647 adolescents (mean age 12.8 years) were surveyed concerning bullying experiences, NSSI and SB, and parental monitoring.ResultsA total of 14.4 % of respondents reported being a victim of frequent bullying in the past few months (with verbal and social bullying playing the most important role), which increased the risks of both NSSI (OR = 11.75) and SB (OR = 6.08). This relationship could also be shown for occasional victims of bullying (35.6 %), although to a lesser extent. Parental monitoring had a significant protective effect on SB in victims of occasional bullying. However, parental monitoring did not show any protective effect in victims of repetitive bullying.ConclusionsVictims of bullying show a substantial risk for engaging in self-harm behavior. Therefore, the dissemination of anti-bullying programs in schools would probably also prevent such disorders. Parental participation in school-based prevention may increase its effect; this also matches the results of the present study, showing that parental monitoring may be able to buffer the negative effects of bullying victimization, at least to a certain degree.
Highlights
Being a victim of bullying in school is clearly linked to various social, emotional, and behavioral problems including self-harm behavior
It could be hypothesized that some forms might cause severer mental health problems than others: social bullying because social status is especially related with psychological well-being during adolescence; or cyber bullying, with its special characteristics of lack of control, ubiquity and low inhibition threshold
Descriptive analyses showed that 93 students (14.4 %) reported having been a victim of repetitive bullying in the last few months, with verbal (9.7 %) and social bullying (8.0 %) being the most frequent
Summary
Being a victim of bullying in school is clearly linked to various social, emotional, and behavioral problems including self-harm behavior. It is not known whether even occasional victimization has similar negative consequences and whether protective factors such as social support may prevent those harmful developments. A phenomenon of particular interest in the past years has been cyber bullying It has been investigated less comprehensively due to its relative novelty [6]. It is still not known whether certain types of bullying are linked to an increased risk for certain disorders or whether the consequences of occasional or subliminal victimization are similar to those for victimization on a regular basis. It could be hypothesized that some forms might cause severer mental health problems than others: social bullying because social status is especially related with psychological well-being during adolescence; or cyber bullying, with its special characteristics of lack of control, ubiquity and low inhibition threshold
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