Children involved in bullying at elementary school age: their psychiatric symptoms and deviance in adolescence: An epidemiological sample☆
Introduction
CHILDREN WHO ARE involved in bullying are found to have more concurrent psychiatric symptoms and deviance than non-involved children Kumpulainen et al 1998, Kumpulainen et al 1999. Bullies are reported to have especially externalizing behavior Boulton and Smith 1994, Kumpulainen et al 1998 and aggression (Roland, 1980). Victims are found to have internalizing behaviour (Kumpulainen et al., 1998), and to be immature and lonely, and to have poor communication and problem solving skills (McClure & Shirataki, 1989). Children involved in bullying may have problems related to school (Reid, 1983), and there are also reports of children who have committed suicide because they have been victims of bullying (Prewitt, 1988).
Involvement in bullying during childhood has also been suggested to be related to future psychological well being. As adults, victims are reported more likely to be depressed and to have poor self-esteem (Olweus, 1993), and to have difficulties in later sexual relationships (Gilmartin, 1987). According to Hugh-Jones and Smith (1999), one-half of bullied individuals reported as adults long-term effects of being bullied at school, predominantly affecting personal relationships. Bullies have been found to have more criminal convictions later in life, and they are also more likely to be involved in serious and recidivist crime (Whitney & Smith, 1993). It has also been suggested that children are especially vulnerable in early adolescence to the psychological harm of bullying, and it is during that period that bullying is particularly common and intense (Rigby, 1999). On a whole, however, our knowledge about the future psychiatric symptoms and deviance of children involved in bullying in earlier years is still scanty and also based mostly on retrospective studies.
The purpose of this study was to investigate psychiatric symptoms and deviance at the age of 15 years in a group of children who were involved in bullying at the age of 8 years and in a group of children who were involved in bullying at the age of 12 years. Furthermore, this study explores the relationships between involvement in bullying, concurrent psychiatric deviance and later psychiatric deviance.
Section snippets
Material and methods
This research project was conducted at three time points: Study 1 in autumn 1989, Study 2 in autumn 1993 and Study 3 in autumn 1996. The time interval between Study 1 and Study 2 was 4 years, and that between Study 2 and Study 3, 3 years, so the interval between Study 1 and Study 3 was 7 years, covering most of the time period children attend elementary and secondary schools. The children were 8.5 year old in Study 1, 12.5 years in Study 2 and 15.5 years in Study 3. In Study 2 and Study 3,
Total scores at the age of 15 years
Bully-victims scored highest on both the parents’ and teachers’ scales and on the BDI (Table 1). Scoring on the parents’ and teachers’ scales differed statistically between the groups studied but the difference on the BDI was not statistically significant. Post hoc analysis using Bonferroni correction to compare each group involved in bullying with controls revealed that total scores of victims and bully-victims differed from those of controls on the parental scale, and also on the teacher
Discussion
One of the strengths of this study is the high response rate of the informants: 7 years after the initial assessment, nearly 90% of the children and their teachers completed the questionnaires. The parental response rate was lower but quite acceptable even after 7 years, although some differences between parental remainders and dropouts were found. Parental dropouts came from low SES families more commonly than did the remainders. The children had also scored slightly higher on the Rutter A2
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This study was supported by the Child Psychiatric Research Foundation (Finland).