Sibling Bullying in Turkish Adolescents: Translation and Cross-Cultural Validation of the Sibling Bullying Questionnaire

Abstract

The primary aim of this study was to translate the Sibling Bullying Questionnaire (SBQ) into Turkish and validate it. A secondary aim was to estimate the prevalence of sibling bullying in Turkish adolescents. The SBQ was translated by a team of English-Turkish bilinguals. Self-report data were collected from Turkish adolescents (N = 301) aged 10 to 18 years old (mean age = 14.25 years, SD = 2.46). Confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) was used to confirm the factor structure of the newly translated Turkish SBQ (T-SBQ). Descriptive analyses were then conducted to report the characteristics of the sample and the prevalence of sibling bullying. CFA confirmed the original two-factor structure of the T-SBQ indicating that a first-order correlated two-factor model shows the best fit: x2=160.33 (p < 0.001), df = 61, RMSEA = 0.07, CFI = 0.95 and TLI = 0.93. The T-SBQ showed satisfactory levels of internal consistency in victimisation (α = 0.84) and perpetration (α = 0.83) subscales, excellent reliability in the overall test scale (α = 0.90), and a high level of convergent validity when compared with the Revised Sibling Bullying Questionnaire (α = 0.79). In terms of sibling bullying prevalence, approximately half of the adolescents (51%) reported having been involved in some form of sibling bullying in the preceding six months, either as pure-victim (18%), pure-bully (3%) or bully-victim (30%). This result aligns with the findings from other countries such as the United States (41%), Israel (51%), and the United Kingdom (49%). The T-SBQ is valid and reliable in measuring sibling bullying in Turkish adolescents and sibling bullying is prevalent in the lives of Turkish adolescents.