Abstract
BackgroundBullying is a widespread and serious problem that might influence both mental and psychical well being as well as school performance and social life. The aim of this study was to describe the prevalence of bullying, mental health problems and psychical complaints among 10th and 12th grade students and to analyze the association between bullying, mental health problems and muscle and skeletal complaints.MethodsTwo cross sectional studies of adolescents living in Oslo, Norway the first conducted in 2001 among 10th grade students (15/16 years old) and the second in 2004 among 12th grade students (18/19 years old). Both surveys were based on self report, were mostly school based and had almost identical questionnaires. There were around 3700 participants in both surveys, but the participation rate was lower in the latter survey (88 versus 80%). The Hopkins Symptoms Check List (HSCL-10) and the Strength and Difficulties Questionnaire (SDQ) were used to measure mental health problems.ResultsBullying is decreasing both among boys and girls while the prevalence of internalized mental health problems are increasing from 10th to 12th grade. For muscle and skeletal pain there is a diverging trend between boys and girls, with an increase among girls and a decrease among boys. The highest Odds Ratios, as a measure for the association between bullying, mental health problems and pain, were found for internalized mental health problems at both 10th and 12th grade both for boys and girls.ConclusionBoth internalized and externalized mental health problems together with pain seem to be associated with bullying irrespective of school type and gender.
Highlights
Bullying is a widespread and serious problem that might influence both mental and psychical well being as well as school performance and social life
Clinical Practice and Epidemiology in Mental Health 2009, 5:6 http://www.cpementalhealth.com/content/5/1/6 strong associations as for other assaults like sexual assault experienced by some children and adolescents [5]
There is great variation between countries with the lowest prevalence found in Sweden where around 6% had experienced bullying and the highest was found in Lithuania where an average of around 40% reported being bullied during the last year [6]
Summary
Bullying is a widespread and serious problem that might influence both mental and psychical well being as well as school performance and social life. Bullying is a serious and widespread problem among children and adolescents, and a traumatic life event that can have serious potential consequences for mental and physical health [1,2,3,4]. Several studies indicate an association with both mental and physical health with the same (page number not for citation purposes). Some studies indicate that more boys than girls are affected by bullying [1,6,7,8,9,10], but the differences are in general small [1,6,7,8,9,10]. In Norway 11% of the girls and 15% of the boys reported bullying in the abovementioned European study [6]. Data on family structure was obtained from the participants' response to the item: "Who do you live together with at present?" We categorized their responses into "both parents" (corresponding to having marked "mother and father"), "one parent" (including the responses "mother only", "father only", "about the same time with mother and father", and "mother or father and new partner or husband/wife"), "foster parents", and "other".
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