Bullying victimization and non-suicidal self-injury in adolescents: parental phubbing and perceived school climate as moderators

Abstract

Background There has been growing scholarly interest in understanding the adverse effects of bullying victimization on adolescents' development. However, it is less clear whether bullying victimization potentially increases adolescents' non-suicidal self-injury, to date, and the understanding of the factors, that may affect this relationship is also limited. The current study, therefore, examined the relationship between bullying victimization and non-suicidal self-injury in adolescents and sought to determine whether parental phubbing and perceived school climate simultaneously moderated this relationship. Methods The participants included 704 students (Mage = 15.15, SD = 0.98) from middle schools in China. They completed the questionnaires regarding their experience with bullying victimization, parental phubbing, perceived school climate and non-suicidal self-injury. Results The results indicated that adolescents with a high level of bullying victimization were likely to have a high level of non-suicidal self-injury, after controlling for age and gender. High parental phubbing adolescents who experienced higher levels of bullying victimization were more likely to be non-suicidal self-injury than low parental phubbing adolescents. Furthermore, higher levels of bullying victimization significantly predicted increases in adolescents' non-suicidal self-injury when they had high parental phubbing and low perceived school climate. In contrast, this effect became insignificant when parental phubbing was low and perceived school climate was high. Conclusions Our findings indicated bullying victimization affects non-suicidal self-injury in adolescents,This relationship is mediated by parental bowing and perceived school climate. Educators who are concerned about adolescents' non-suicidal self-injury should pay closer attention to parental phubbing, as well as their perceived school climate, to provide appropriate interventions.