Forms of Bullying among Students in Medical Sector at Suez Canal University: Prevalence and Impact

Abstract

Medical students are exposed to multiple external factors during their academic and clinical study that showed to contribute to high levels of depression, anxiety, and stress. Recently, bullying is considered one of these factors. Researchers distinguish several main types of bullying; the most common categories are physical, verbal, indirect, relational, social, sexual, and cyberbullying. We aimed to explore the existence of the bullying act and its psychological impact on medical students' health to help study its impact on the community to increase awareness concerning this major social problem. The study was descriptive cross-sectional conducted on 438 undergraduate volunteer students from both gender; they were recruited from the faculties of Medicine, Pharmacy, Dentistry, Veterinary Medicine, and Nursing from Suez Canal University. A selfadministered questionnaire was sent online to students. Students found to be victims of bullying completed other scales to assess the psychological impact of bullying. Most of the students (85.4%) reported being verbally, psychologically, and physically bullied by other students. The greatest proportion (77.4%) of those who reported being bullied by other students said that this happened only once or twice and (31.1%) of participants said that they bullied others. More than two-thirds of participants (72.4%) were among levels of low anxiety; while (21.2%) of the total studied sample had mild depression. We concluded that Bullying is prevalent among medical sector students. The greatest proportion of the total sample was among levels of low anxiety and mild depression whereas the greatest proportion in both scales was among females.