Cyberbullying and Victimization and Youth Suicide Risk: The Buffering Effects of School Connectedness

Abstract

Bullying has been linked to adolescent suicidal behavior. With dramatic increases in social media use among youth, understanding the influence of cyberbullying on adolescent suicidal behavior has become central to prevention efforts. This study examined the potential protective role of school connectedness in the relationship between cyberbullying and suicide risk behavior. Data were from 93 adolescents participating in a longitudinal study of an intervention to prevent health-risk behavior including suicidal behavior. Hierarchical logistic regression was used to examine the influence of cyberbullying and school connectedness on adolescent suicidal behavior. Findings indicated that being a victim of cyberbullying, but not a perpetrator, was associated with increased risk of suicide and that connections to school moderated this relationship in that, among youth who were victims of cyberbullying, those more connected to school were less likely to report suicidal behavior. Implications for school-based suicide prevention and school nurse practice are discussed.

Internet addiction mediates the association between cyber victimization and psychological and physical symptoms:moderation by physical exercise

“…Numerous studies have been conducted to investigate the consequence of cyberbullying, including problems of mental and physical health [3,4,6,15,47]. Nonetheless, the potential mechanisms underlying cyber victimization and psychological and physical symptoms remain unclear, and only little research has explored this specific topic [13,21,22]. The present study is the first to show that internet addiction mediates the relationship between cyber victimization and physical and mental health, and that physical exercise plays a moderating role on the above mediation.…”

“…Family dinners were proposed to moderate the relationship between cyber victimization and mental health problems [13]. In addition, connectedness between students and school was identified to function as a moderator by alleviating the association between cyber victimization and suicide [22]. This study hypothesized that victims may search for other means, such as a virtual reality to cope with the pressures of being bullied.…”

Cyberbullying Victimization and Non-suicidal Self-Injurious Behavior Among Chinese Adolescents: School Engagement as a Mediator and Sensation Seeking as a Moderator

“…For example, Wyman et al (2010) found that improving students' school engagement can effectively and significantly reduce their suicide-risk level. Considerable evidence has confirmed that school engagement is an important protective factor against NSSI (Chapman et al, 2011;Kim et al, 2019). Chapman et al (2011) found that emotional school engagement was associated with lower injurious behavior, including NSSI behavior in adolescents.…”

“…Chapman et al (2011) found that emotional school engagement was associated with lower injurious behavior, including NSSI behavior in adolescents. Moreover, Kim et al (2019) reported that emotional school engagement could buffer the negative impact of cybervictimization on adolescent NSSI and suicidal behaviors. Based on the literature reviewed above, school engagement may be a crucial mediator in the underlying mechanism that how cyberbullying victimization brings a bear to adolescent NSSI, so we propose the following:…”

Internet addiction mediates the association between cyber victimization and psychological and physical symptoms：moderation by physical exercise

“…Nonetheless, the potential mechanisms underlying cyber victimization and psychological and physical symptoms remain unclear, and only little research has explored this specific topic [13,21,22]. The present study is the first to show that internet addiction mediates the relationship between cyber victimization and physical and mental health, and that physical exercise plays a moderating role on the above mediation.…”