While the negative consequences of bullying victimisation are well known, to date few longitudinal studies have investigated an inverse association, in which mental health problems make individuals more vulnerable to becoming victims, bullies, or both. The significant psychosocial harms from bullying among adolescents create major challenges for mental health promotion programs and services in schools. Worldwide, there is a vast amount of evidence linking bullying experiences to development of emotional, cognitive, social, and behavioural problems. Bullying is a common experience among adolescents and strong, negative associations between bullying (including traditional and cyberbullying) and psychological wellbeing are evident among victims and perpetrators, and among children who are both victims and bullies. Anti-bullying intervention and prevention programs and school-based mental health promotion programs should be integrated and be sensitive to gender differences in order to maximise their impact.īullying is defined as intentional and repeated aggression that is expressed in physical, verbal, or relational forms in which the targets cannot defend themselves because of an imbalance of power in both traditional (i.e., face-to-face) and cyberbullying forms. This study is the first of its kind in Vietnam and in the Southeast Asian region to examine reciprocal associations between bullying victimisation and mental health problems among adolescents. Females with mental health problems were more likely to be victims whereas similarly distressed males were vulnerable to both being bullied and being perpetrators. Bullying victimisation was shown as an independent predictor of subsequent mental health problems in turn, mental health problems preceded students’ experience of becoming victims or bully-victims. There were reciprocal associations between bullying victimisation and mental health problems. After adjusting for outcome variables and other covariates measured at Time 1, nine of 12 cross-lagged associations across three models were statistically significant, with different patterns for females and males. Females reported a higher level of depressive symptoms than males at Time 1 but not at Time 2. ResultsĪbout one-third of students in the sample were involved as victims, bullies or bully-victims at both times, with more males than females reporting these experiences. A cross-lagged analysis was performed to test the reciprocal associations. Measures estimated bullying victimisation and perpetration in the past 6 months, depressive symptoms, psychological distress, and suicidal ideation. Secondary and high school students (n = 1167 age range: 11–16 years old 55% female) in urban areas in northern Vietnam completed two self-administered questionnaires, 6-months apart in the academic year 2014–2015. Based on a short-term longitudinal study among adolescents in Vietnam, this study examined reciprocal associations between children’s depressive symptoms, psychological distress, suicidal ideation and bullying victimisation experiences (i.e., victims or bully-victims). While the negative consequences of bullying victimisation are well known, to date there is scarce empirical analysis of inverse associations, in which mental health problems make children more vulnerable to bullying victimisation and perpetration.
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