Abstract
BackgroundDue to the rapid development of information and communication technologies, cyberbullying has emerged as a threat to adolescents. This study aimed to investigate the prevalence and correlates among profiles of traditional bullying, cyberbullying, and combined bullying among Taiwanese high school students.MethodsThis cross-sectional study employed two-stage cluster sampling in Taipei City, Taiwan. In total, 2028 high school students completed an anonymous questionnaire between March and May 2018. Nominal logistic regression analysis was performed, adjusting for clustering, to examine the correlates of each type-role category of bullying.ResultsThe prevalence rates of cyberbullying, traditional bullying, and combined bullying were 9.9, 13.3, and 9.4%, respectively, indicating that one-third of students were involved in one of these types of bullying; 48.7% of those involved in cyberbullying also experienced traditional bullying, and 41.5% of those involved in traditional bullying also experienced cyberbullying. In any type of bullying, not only being a victim but also being a bully/bully-victim was significantly associated with at least one mental health problem (serious psychological distress, self-harm, or suicidal ideation), except in the case of cyberbullying bullies/bully-victims. Internet abuse and alcohol use were more concentrated among bullies/bully-victims than victims for all types of bullying, and a similar trend was observed among types of schools and school climates, suggesting that specific behavioural circumstances or school backgrounds are associated with bullying perpetration.ConclusionsBullying is a prevalent and complex phenomenon among adolescents in Taiwan, where traditional bullying and cyberbullying frequently overlap and are likely to occur against specific backgrounds. These facts should be taken into account in future bullying prevention and support programmes in Taiwan.
Highlights
Due to the rapid development of information and communication technologies, cyberbullying has emerged as a threat to adolescents
This study showed that the test-retest reliability values (1-week interval) of the questionnaire measured by means of intraclass correlation coefficients (ICCs) were 0.48 and 0.75 for the victimisation and perpetration of traditional bullying, respectively, and 0.54 and 0.60 for the victimisation and perpetration of cyberbullying
Of the 2111 returned questionnaires, we excluded invalid questionnaires based on the following criteria: (1) response bias: the participants completed the questionnaires by filling in the same answer repeatedly or filling in answers according to a pattern; (2) incomplete questionnaires; and (3) missing values for the outcome variables: participants submitted questionnaires with incomplete information for the traditional bullying and cyberbullying items
Summary
Due to the rapid development of information and communication technologies, cyberbullying has emerged as a threat to adolescents. With the rapid development and dissemination of information and communication technologies (ICTs), many adolescents use the internet and social networking services (SNSs) [4], which increases the opportunities for cyberbullying [5, 6]. Compared with traditional bullying, cyberbullying has a unique nature with respect to publicity, anonymity, and the lack of supervision [8], which can lead to substantial psychological and psychiatric problems among victims [9, 10]. Cyberbullying sometimes overlaps with traditional bullying and potentially leaves profound health impacts on victims. Previous studies have documented that adolescents exposed to two types of bullying are likely to suffer from higher levels of psychological distress than those involved in a single type of bullying [9, 11]
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