Raising awareness among adolescent cyberbullies and their parents in Türkiye through a web-based cyberbullying education program based on Pender's health promotion model

Abstract

PurposeThe present study was carried out to examine the efficacy of a web-based Cyberbullying Awareness and Education (CBAE) program that was designed to raise awareness of cyberbullying among adolescents and their parents. Design and methodIncluded in this quasi-experimental study were 64 adolescents (intervention group = 33, control group = 31) and 64 parents (intervention group = 33, control group = 31). The adolescents and parents in the intervention group took part in a 5-week CBAE program that was conducted through the website www.dijitalgencdijitalebeveyn.com, and included educational videos on (1) the Definition and Types of Cyberbullying, (2) the Causes and Outcomes of Cyberbullying, (3) Digital Citizenship, (4) Empathy (5) and Safe Internet Use; while the parents in the intervention group attended courses on (1) the Definition and Types of Cyberbullying, (2) the Causes and Outcomes of Cyberbullying, (3) Digital Parenting, (4) Empathy (5) and Safe Internet Use. The adolescents and parents in the control group, on the other hand, took part in no such interventions. Data were collected online using the Adolescent and Parent Data Collection Form, the Revised Cyber Bullying Inventory (RCBI-II) and the Adolescent and Parent Cyberbullying Awareness Form, and the acquired data were subjected to Mann-Whitney U, Wilcoxon and Independent samples t-tests for statistical analysis. ResultsThe findings revealed a significant increase in the scores obtained from the CBAE Adolescent and Parent Evaluation Forms after the course, and the scores of the adolescents in the RCBI-II “I have engaged in cyberbullying” section were noted to decrease significantly in the intervention group. ConclusionThe CBAE web-based program was found to be effective in raising awareness of cyberbullying. As such, the use of the web-based CBAE program, which involves the parents of adolescents in the education process, is recommended as an interventional approach to the prevention of cyberbullying among adolescents. Practical implicationsNurses should have the necessary competences to provide cyberbullying education to adolescents and their parents.