Mental Health, Bullying, and Victimization among Chinese Adolescents

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to examine if adolescents who experience anxiety or depression have higher levels of reported bullying victimization or perpetration than those who do not. Based on the existing research, we hypothesized that those who experienced moderate or severe depression and anxiety would have higher rates of bullying victimization and perpetration when compared to those who experienced mild or no depression. This study used an observational design, and data were collected from a convenience sample of adolescents in a large regional high school in an Eastern province of China. The final sample included 1481 adolescents aged 14–19 years who provided complete data for each of the study variables. Demographic data were collected through a four-item demographic survey, bullying perpetration and victimization data were collected using subscales from the Illinois Bully Scale, and anxiety and depression were measured using the Chinese version of the General Anxiety Disorder-7 scale and the Patient Health Questionnaire, respectively. Descriptive analyses, correlational analyses, and multivariate analysis of covariance were used to analyze the data. About 7.1% and 15.2% of participants reported moderate-to-severe depression or moderate-to-severe anxiety, respectively. Pairwise comparisons indicated that adolescents with no or mild depression had significantly lower bullying perpetration than those with moderate-to-severe depression, but those with no or mild anxiety had significantly higher perpetration than those with moderate-to-severe anxiety. There was no statistically significant difference in victimization among different anxiety or depression levels alone (all p-values ≥ 0.05). This is among the first studies to examine reported levels of bullying perpetration and victimization among adolescents experiencing anxiety and depression. The findings help to identify adolescents who experience moderate-to-severe levels of depression as an at-risk group for bullying perpetration, who should therefore be a focus of bullying intervention work.

Determinant of Mental Emotional Disorder in Adolescent: A Cross-Sectional Study

“…These findings align with meta-analysis studies showing that bullied adolescents have a 2.77 times higher risk of experiencing depression than those who are not [33]. Another study on adolescents in China showed that experience of inbully positively correlated with anxiety and depression: The severity of anxiety and depression that adolescents experience depends on how frequently they get bullied [34]. Additionally, a study conducted in Bukittinggi City, West Sumatra, showed that adolescents who experienced bullying are 3.445 times more likely to experience depression than those who have never experienced bullying [35].…”

Bullying in Adolescents Practising Sport: A Structural Model Approach

“…Therefore, it is important to understand how the bullying situation is related to young people’s compliance or non-compliance with physical activity recommendations and sedentary behaviour [ 68 ]. Similarly, these findings can be supported by the results of [ 69 ] where it is highlighted that young people who reported that they had bullied others or had been bullied were associated with less sport practices. However, students who reported more sporting activity contributed significantly to predicting that this type of activity decreased bullying levels among adolescents [ 70 ].…”

Does Friend Support Matter? The Association between Gender Role Attitudes and School Bullying among Male Adolescents in China

“…In measuring adolescent bullying perpetration, the present study used the bullying subscale of the Chinese version of the Illinois Bully Scale (IBS) [ 71 , 72 ], which has been shown to have good reliability [ 24 , 73 ]. The subscale includes nine items to assess bullying behaviors in the past 30 days.…”