Mechanisms and Frequency of Violent Injuries Among Victims and Perpetrators of Bullying

doi:10.1016/j.jadohealth.2018.10.295

Journal of Adolescent Health

Volume 64, Issue 5, May 2019, Pages 664-670

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jadohealth.2018.10.295 Get rights and content

Abstract

Purpose

This article aims to (1) evaluate whether bullying typology predicts violent injury; (2) longitudinally examine whether violent injury trajectories differ across bullying typology as children age; and (3) longitudinally determine whether children who consistently reported perpetration or victimization (i.e., reported bullying at fifth, seventh, and 10th grade) were different from children who inconsistently reported perpetration or victimization.

Methods

Longitudinal data were obtained from 4,297 children at three waves (fifth, seventh, and 10th grade) in three United States communities. Children were categorized into four mutually exclusive bullying typologies: neither victim nor perpetrator; victim only; perpetrator only; victim-perpetrator. Children self-reported mechanisms of violent injuries that needed medical attention in the past year. Regression models were used to evaluate the relationship between bullying group and the likelihood of violent injury over time.

Results

Seventeen percent (n=857) of children in fifth grade reported a violent injury. Prevalence of overall violent injuries, and specifically firearm and knife injuries, increased over time. Children who reported perpetration in the absence of victimization were at increased odds for violent injury (adjusted odds ratio = 1.41, 95% confidence interval: 1.24, 1.60) compared with children who reported neither victimization nor perpetration, while children who reported victimization in the absence of perpetration were at decreased odds (adjusted odds ratio=.84, 95% confidence interval: .73, .97). A significant linear dose-response relationship was observed between duration of bullying perpetration and violent injury.

Conclusions

The relationship between bullying perpetration and violent injury over time was strong. Future research should investigate potential mediating behaviors, such as weapon access, which might explain the observed relationship.

Section snippets

Study population

Data were obtained from Healthy Passages, a cohort study of children and their primary caregivers followed up from fifth through 10th grade in three U.S. communities. The initial sampling frame for this study included fifth grade students at public schools in districts in and around Birmingham, Alabama, Houston, and Los Angeles County; the study population represented over 99% of students in regular public school classrooms in the study districts. A more detailed description of the Healthy

Results

A description of the sample at baseline is shown in Table 1. The average participant was 11.1 (standard deviation=.6) years at baseline, and slightly fewer than half of the children (49.3%) were boys. In fifth grade, 30.0% of children were victims of bullying only, while 5.5% were bully perpetrators only, and 16.0% were victim-perpetrators. In seventh grade, 12% of children were victims of bullying only, 15% were bully perpetrators only, and 13% were victim-perpetrators. In 10th grade, 10% of

Discussion

This article used longitudinal data from a multisite study of children to expand our knowledge about the relationship between bullying perpetration and victimization typology and violent injuries requiring medical attention. Results from this study suggest that violent injuries emerge at a very young age; 17% of fifth graders reported a firearm-, knife-, or assault-related injury needing medical attention in their lifetime. Violent injuries proceeded to significantly increase over time, with

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Sex, age and cyber-victimization: A meta-analysis.
2023, Computers in Human Behavior
Citation Excerpt :
Therefore, and despite the small difference found on the basis of age, there is a great variety of results, being the North American culture the only one that contributes to explain the age differences in cyberbullying. On the other hand, and despite the fact that they have not been the subject of statistical analysis, there are a series of variables that have been considered by the authors of the studies included in this meta-analysis such as family, individual differences and Internet consumption that deserve reflection and future study (Baldry et al., 2019; Baumgartner et al., 2014; Huang et al., 2020; Jetelina et al., 2019; Quintana-Orts & Rey, 2018; Turliuc et al., 2020). The meta-analysis carried out has led to the conclusion that the effect sizes, although significant, are low for both sex and age.
Cyberbulling is one of the biggest challenges the school faces. However, the lack of coherence between the data of the literature review makes it necessary to consider which elements are the ones that truly lead to the appearance of cyber-victimization. Through the meta-analysis methodology, it has been tried to clarify the role of sex (k = 41 samples, n = 176,658 adolescents) and age (k = 45 samples, n = 238,977 adolescents) in cyber-victimization. The effect size for the random model is small for both sex (r = 0.058; p < 0.00, 95% CI = 0.090; 3.45) and for age (r = 0.094; p = 0.004; 95% CI = 0.015; 2.910). Indications of significant differences in sex are observed, with women being the most affected. However, the results of the meta-regression have shown how the North American culture plays a key role in age as a moderating variable in relation to the rest of continental cultures. These results support the conclusion that age and sex represent variables that influence cyber-victimization. More specifically, there is a positive relationship between age and cybervictimization, so that the older the age, the higher the cybervictimization, but this is negatively mediated by the American culture. At the same time, some socio-contextual characteristics also seem to have effects on this aspect. Considering this, some important practical implications emerge related to the need to address the study, care and prevention of cyber-victimization as well as any form of violence that occurs inside and outside the classroom.
Does the type of school matter in preventing bullying? Knowledge, experience, and readiness to face bullying by students enrolled in public and private schools in the Philippines
2023, Social Sciences and Humanities Open
As the Philippines is historically endowed with a number of private schools and is the only predominantly Christian nation in Asia, it is conventionally expected that students enrolled in these institutions will have distinct campus experiences from those enrolled in public institutions (De Guzman, 2011; Arcilla, 1972; Cruz, 2014; Palma, 2012; and Lasquety-Reyes, 2018). However, bullying is a significant impediment to a nurturing environment in today's schools, necessitating that it be adequately explored and represented in academic literature. In this regard, a total of 765 students were randomly selected from public and private secondary schools and surveyed about their preparedness to face bullying. Specific variables investigated included the advice they received on bullying, their attendance at religious services, their attendance at meetings and seminars on bullying, their awareness and knowledge of the law on bullying, their sources of information, their experience of bullying at home, people they could rely on in the event of bullying, and the types of bullying they perceived at school.Results revealed that students in public schools have received more advice and have more people to rely on when bullied compared to those in private schools. Additionally, students from private schools rely more on friends than teachers or parents when bullied, and more of them have attended meetings and discussions regarding bullying. Meanwhile, students from both types of schools reported at least one incident of verbal abuse at home, limited knowledge of RA10627 (the 2013 Philippine Anti-Bullying Law), and concern about being bullied by teachers. Finally, while snobbery and malicious rumors were the most common forms of bullying experienced, physical bullying remains a reality for some.
Bullying risk and protective factors among elementary school students over time: A systematic review
2021, International Journal of Educational Research
Citation Excerpt :
The articles that comprised this systematic literature review revealed that students can become involved in bullying situations in four different ways: victims, aggressors, victims-aggressors or non-involved. The majority of students sought not to get involved in the situation, and there is a small pattern of victims or aggressor and an even smaller group of victims-aggressors (Jetelina et al., 2019; Pan et al., 2017). Students who were most aggressive were most at risk of victimization in the 2nd grade (Sugimura et al., 2017), and would therefore become victims-aggressors.
The objective of this article was to undertake a systematic review of specific evidence available on longitudinal studies of bullying among Elementary School children found in empirical scientific articles published between 2013 and 2020 in peer-reviewed periodicals. The result of the searches on the CAPES, ERIC and PsycInfo databases led to 24 articles published between 2014 and 2019 in 13 periodicals. It was found that student involvement in bullying could be as victims, victims-aggressors or neither as victims nor as aggressors, so that bullying manifests itself in different ways for boys and girls, and that the school climate is one of the main bullying risk or protective factors.
Association between different stages of precollege school bullying and murder-related psychological behaviors among college students in Anhui Province, China
2019, Psychiatry Research
Citation Excerpt :
Further, adolescents with homicidal behavior were more likely to use alcohol and tobacco, carry weapons (Hohl et al., 2017; Dodson, 2016), and even suffer from mental health problems (Taylor and Kalebic, 2018; Yoshimasu, 2017). Jetelina et al. (2019) have found that compared with nonvictimized children, those who were bullied in childhood had an increased risk of violent injuries. A study conducted in nationally representative sample of US high school students revealed that compared with nonvictims (2.5%), victims (46.4%) were more likely to carry weapons to school (Pham et al., 2017), possibly to defense violence.
Little is known about the relationship between precollege school bullying and murder-related psychological behaviors. The present study aims to examine that relationship in Chinese college students using a cross-sectional study. Self-report data were collected from 4034 college students in Anhui Province using a proportional stratified cluster sampling method. Four types of school bullying (i.e., physical, verbal, relational, and cyber) with bullies and victims and two periods (i.e., primary and secondary) were measured. The prevalence rates of murderous ideation, plans, preparation, and attempts were 6.9%, 2.5%, 1.8%, 1.4%, respectively. Different stages of precollege cyber bullying were associated with murder-related psychological behaviors for both bullies (primary: AORs = 2.78 to 15.67; secondary: AORs = 2.43 to 9.99; both periods: AORs = 2.26 to 14.04) and victims (primary: AORs = 2.87 to 16.57; secondary: AORs = 1.89 to 4.49; both periods: AORs = 3.68 to 21.48). A dose-response relationship was found, such that college students with a bullying perpetration index of two types and more were more likely to have murder-related psychological behaviors than those who were not bullied. Notably, both primary and secondary school bullying, especially cyber forms, were more likely to be associated with murder-related psychological behaviors. Therefore, it is necessary to develop school bullying preventive measures beginning in primary school.
Self-reporting discrepancies of bullying victimization and perpetration measures
2019, Annals of Epidemiology
Citation Excerpt :
Finally, we were unable to analyze the socioeconomic differences among children who were both victims and perpetrators because of small cell sizes in the models. Research has consistently reported that bully-victims are a unique population, [42] and future research, with perhaps even larger sample sizes, should analyze response discrepancies among this subpopulation of children. Larger studies would also have the ability to stratify results based on type of victimization/perpetration (i.e., verbal, emotional, physical, and cyber bullying, which was not examined in this study) to explore whether this also influences measure discrepancies.
To evaluate the relationship between sociodemographics and the prevalence of bullying victimization and perpetration using single-item and multiple-item measures.
Longitudinal survey data were obtained from 4297 children at fifth, seventh, and tenth grade in three U.S. cities. Bullying victimization and perpetration were measured in two ways: 1) a single-item recall measure; and 2) a separate multiple-item measure using specific behaviors indicating bullying victimization and perpetration. Multilevel logistic regression modeled the relationship between sociodemographics and bullying, stratified by measurement type.
In fifth grade, 4% of children were identified as victims using the single-item approach but not the multiple-item approach, 27% were identified as victims using the multiple-item approach but not the single-item approach, and 17% were identified as victims using both approaches. For perpetration, 3% were identified using the single-item approach but not the multiple-item approach, 18% were identified using the multiple-item and not the single-item approach, and 4% were identified using both approaches. The odds of victimization were significantly lower in seventh and tenth grades than in fifth grade using both approaches. The single-item odds of perpetration were significantly lower in tenth grade than fifth grade, but the multiple-item odds of perpetration significantly increased over time.
Bullying prevalence rates are sensitive to the structure of measures. Future research should identify whether these differences reflect a lack of awareness of types of bullying and/or cognitive variability in answering sensitive survey questions.
Victim profiles and the protective role of school anti-bullying norms: a study of Chinese adolescents
2023, Current Psychology

View all citing articles on Scopus

: Conflicts of interest: The authors have no conflicts of interest to disclose.

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Original articleMechanisms and Frequency of Violent Injuries Among Victims and Perpetrators of Bullying

Abstract

Purpose

Methods

Results

Conclusions

Section snippets

Study population

Results

Discussion

J Sch Psychol

Am J Prev Med

J Adolesc Health

Preventing Bullying: Through science, policy, and practice

Bullying and peer victimization at school: Perceptual differences between students and school staff

Sch Psychol Rev

Does bullying cause emotional problems? A prospective study of young teenagers

Br Med J

Association between bullying and psychosomatic problems: A meta-analysis

Pediatrics

Did the ugly duckling have PTSD? Bullying, its effects, and the role of pediatricians

Pediatrics

Bullying, depression, and suicidality in adolescents

J Am Acad Child Psychol

Bullying, depression, and suicidal ideation in Finnish adolescents: School survey

Br J Med

Peer victimization in fifth grade and health in tenth grade

Pediatrics

Peer victimization, depressive Symptoms, and substance Use: A longitudinal analysis

Pediatrics

A model of achievement and bullying: Analyses of the Canadian national longitudinal survey of children and youth data

Educ Res

A longitudinal study of bullying of sexual-minority youth

N Engl J Med

Bullying and injury profile of female intermediate and bachelor programme students–perspective from Islamabad

J Pak Med Assoc

Prevalence and socio-demographic correlates for serious injury among adolescents participating in the Djibouti 2007 Global School-based Health Survey

BMC Res Notes

Peer victimization in early adolescence: Association between physical and relational victimization and drug use, aggression, and delinquent behaviors among urban middle school students

Dev Psychopathol

The impact of definition and question order on the prevalence of bullying victimization using student self-reports

Psychol Assess

Original article
Mechanisms and Frequency of Violent Injuries Among Victims and Perpetrators of Bullying