Bullying victimization and its associated factors among adolescents in Illu Abba Bor Zone, Southwest Ethiopia: a cross-sectional study

Abstract

Background Bullying victimization is a repetitive exposure to negative actions from one or more students over time. Bullying victim adolescents have higher levels of mental health problems, worse mental health outcomes, and lowered social status than non-victim adolescents. Literature on bullying among adolescents in Ethiopia is limited. This study aimed to assess the magnitude of bullying victimization and its associated factors among adolescents. Methods A community-based cross-sectional study was carried out among 847 adolescents in Mettu town. A Stratified sampling technique was used to select eligible Study participants from September, 1 to 30, 2020. Linear regression analysis model was used; first bivariate analysis was performed to see the association of each independent variable with bullying victimization. Variables with (P < 0.25) in bivariate analysis were entered into a multivariate linear regression model to identify the association of each independent variable with bullying victimization. The statistical significance was considered at P value < 0.05. Results From the total of 847 adolescents 819 were voluntarily involved in the study giving the response rate of 96.7%. The prevalence of bullying victimization in this study was 30.4%. Being male (β = 1.135, p = 0.001), physical abuse (β = 0.622, p ≤ 0.001), emotional abuse (β = 0.512, p ≤ 0.001), current substance use (β = 1.153, p = 0.005), psychological distress (β = 0.406, p ≤ 0.001) and having medical illness (β = 3.500, p ≤ 0.001) were significantly associated with bullying victimization. Conclusions Bullying victimization is quite common among adolescents and has both short- and long-term consequences. Bullying prevention treatments should focus on male adolescents and those who report being bullied. Anti-bullying policies in schools are critical for educating teachers, parents, and students about bullying.

Vitimização por bullying e fatores associados entre escolares de um município do Sul do Brasil

“…Evidências científicas apontam a associação de comportamentos de risco com maiores índices de vitimização por bullying 4,11,39 . Essa relação pode ser explicada pelo fato de a adolescência ser um período de maior propensão para iniciação do uso do tabaco, assim, vítimas se tornam mais suscetíveis ao uso dessa substância, uma vez que o bullying pode levar a uma série de comportamentos nocivos à saúde, como desconforto físico, social e mental [40][41][42][43][44][45] . No Brasil, diversos autores reforçam a relação entre sofrer bullying e uso de tabaco 11,33,39,40 , e os resultados do presente estudo apontam um percentual significativo de violência (84,5%) entre aqueles que responderam ter experimentado essa substância.…”

Bullying victimization among adolescents: Prevalence, associated factors and correlation with mental health outcomes

“…Bullying behavior has been defined as deliberate aggressive behavior repeated over a period of time, where there is an imbalance of power between the bullying victim and the perpetrator [ 4 ].…”

The Role of Rumination as a Mediator of Psychological Distress Relationships and Nonsuicidal Self-Injury Behavior in Adolescent Victims of Bullying

“…Bullying experienced by adolescents has a negative impact on their psychological condition, because basically the psychological growth of adolescents is also influenced by the social environment (Kim, 2020). The negative impact of bullying is characterized by the emergence of significant psychological distress and even persists long after the bullying has long stopped (Swartz & Bhattacharya, 2017;Zwierzynska et al, 2013;Lereya et al, 2015;Tiwari & Deshpande, 2020;Ilyas et al, 2021;Tarafa et al, 2022). Psychological stress, in fact, does not only result from bullying events experienced, many other things such as severe illness, academic problems, disputes with parents, conflicts with parents, academic problems (Kamijo & Yukawa, 2018).…”

“…Bullying gives individuals bad experiences resulting from repeated aggressive actions, where in this situation the victim experiences an imbalance of power which means they cannot defend themselves (Sourander et al, 2007). This ultimately makes adolescent victims of bullying have more mental health problems (Tarafa et al, 2022).…”