Mental Health Of Teenagers Participating At School Bullying

Abstract

This study is focused on mental health of teenagers participating in bullying. The main goal is to estimate if certain mental health problem can be predictors of victimization, bullying and witnessing in bullying situation. The sample includes 414 students of 7-9 grades of secondary schools (age 12-15).Victims, bullies and witnesses are revealed with Olweus Bully/Victim Questionnaire. Mental health was measured with Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire, developed by R. Goodman. The study found that 33,8% of teenagers to be victims, 17,1% -bullies, and 27,5% -witnesses. There were significantly more boys among bullies than girls. Emotional, behavioral, peer-related and hyperactivity problems and prosocial behavior constitute predictors of victimization. We can suggest that emotional, behavioral, peerrelated and hyperactivity problems have additive effect on victim mental health status, which makes victims behave in such manner that they become easy targets for bullies. In its turn, bullying incident deepens suffering of victims and produces new mental health problems or enforces existing ones.Hyperactivity and gender were significant predictors for bullying. Prosocial behavior is a predictor of witnessing bullying, and probably, this indicated the conformal position of witnesses. Future research are suggested to add environmental, relational or demographic factors to improve the models.