Prevalence and Forms of Bullying Perpetration and Victimization in Indian Adolescents

Abstract

Background: Bullying in childhood and adolescence has pervasive negative impacts in adulthood in both victims and bullies. There are few studies describing the prevalence of bullying in Indian schools, and few which have documented the various forms of bullying prevalent in our country. This study is being carried out with working hypothesis that various forms of bullying perpetration and victimisation exists in Indian urban schools. Objectives: To study the prevalence of bullying perpetration/ victimization, forms of bullying/victimization in Indian high school students. Methods: A cross sectional study conducted in 2 urban schools in Bangalore. A cohort of 435 adolescents (13-18yrs) were administered a pre validated 8 item questionnaire, part of the Student School Survey to assess bullying perpetration/ victimization. Results: 435 students in all, with 242 girls (55.6%), 170 boys (39.1%), 23 not revealing gender were studied. Total prevalence of bullying perpetration was 70.74%, and victimization was 74.94%. Verbal bullying was the most prevalent (55.17%) with physical bullying (40.46%) and cyber bullying (15.86%) being less frequently reported. Similarly verbal victimization (65.75%) was most prevalent followed by physical victimization (40.23%) and cyber victimization (14.48%). Conclusions: The information revealed by our study sensitizes doctors to the existing prevalence of bullying. Paediatricians and adolescent physicians should enquire about bullying from their adolescent patients and offer anticipatory guidance. Assessment of bullying can be implemented routinely in schools. A multi-targeted approach at individual/family level, school level, community level, State level and National level to make the school a safer environment for children can be adopted.

Prevalence of violent communication within Indian organisations- A systematic review and meta-analysis

“…All 34 included cross-sectional studies reported the twelve-month prevalence of at least one type of violent communication (or had sufficient data for calculation). Among the 34 studies, 17 reported the overall prevalence of violent communication [ 9 , 30 , 37 , 38 , 39 , 40 , 41 , 43 , 52 , 53 , 54 , 55 , 56 , 57 , 58 , 59 , 60 ], 11 reported the prevalence of verbal and non-verbal violence separately without reporting the combined prevalence [ 8 , 31 , 36 , 42 , 61 , 62 , 63 , 64 , 65 , 66 , 67 ], 2 reported the prevalence of verbal violence only [ 32 , 68 ], and 4 reported the prevalence of non-verbal violence only [ 20 , 33 , 69 , 70 ]. Most studies saw verbal violence as the most common form of violent communication [ 31 , 36 , 42 , 61 , 62 , 63 , 64 , 65 , 66 , 67 ].…”

“…Among the 34 studies, 17 reported the overall prevalence of violent communication [ 9 , 30 , 37 , 38 , 39 , 40 , 41 , 43 , 52 , 53 , 54 , 55 , 56 , 57 , 58 , 59 , 60 ], 11 reported the prevalence of verbal and non-verbal violence separately without reporting the combined prevalence [ 8 , 31 , 36 , 42 , 61 , 62 , 63 , 64 , 65 , 66 , 67 ], 2 reported the prevalence of verbal violence only [ 32 , 68 ], and 4 reported the prevalence of non-verbal violence only [ 20 , 33 , 69 , 70 ]. Most studies saw verbal violence as the most common form of violent communication [ 31 , 36 , 42 , 61 , 62 , 63 , 64 , 65 , 66 , 67 ]. The operational definition of violence varied across studies, with some of the studies referring to the standard definitions given by the International Labour Office (ILO) and/or World Health Organisation (WHO) [ 32 , 41 , 55 , 58 , 65 , 68 , 70 ], whereas few other studies had context-specific conceptualisations of violence based on the formative researches conducted by the respective authors on a similar sample prior to the assessment of prevalence [ 31 , 56 ].…”

“…The finalised studies were published between 2005 and 2021(median-2018 used as a dividing point for subgroup analysis based on publication year). The studies were predominantly conducted after 2015 across different states, including Uttar Pradesh [ 31 , 32 , 61 , 62 , 69 ], Karnataka [ 53 , 63 ], Tamil Nadu [ 20 , 52 , 54 ], Manipur [ 55 ], Chandigarh [ 33 , 41 , 64 ], Delhi [ 9 , 37 ], Punjab [ 68 ], Maharashtra [ 38 , 40 ], Kerala [ 56 ], West Bengal [ 70 ], Haryana [ 42 ], Kashmir [ 36 , 57 ], Gujarat [ 39 ]. Data for 19 studies were collected from organisations in North India, and only eight collected data from South India.…”

“…The sample size of the included studies ranged from 100 to 10632 (median- 393; Interquartile Range:275–667, thus, substantiating the reason for taking 393 as the cut-off value for subgroup analysis based on sample size) and consisted of 29629 participants in total. Five studies had only females as participants [ 31 , 54 , 61 , 62 , 69 ], 1 study with only male participants [ 70 ] and from the remaining studies conducted on both male and female participants, 15 studies reported the prevalence of violent communication among each gender separately [ 9 , 20 , 37 , 38 , 40 , 41 , 42 , 43 , 55 , 57 , 59 , 63 , 66 , 67 , 68 ]. Among the 32 studies that reported sampling method, 24 used the probability sampling method [ 9 , 20 , 30 , 31 , 32 , 33 , 37 , 38 , 40 , 41 , 42 , 53 , 54 , 55 , 57 , 58 , 60 , 61 , 62 , 63 , 64 , 65 , 68 , 69 ] and 8 used the non-probability sampling method [ 8 , 36 , 39 , 43 , 52 , 59 , 66 , 70 ].…”

“…Five studies had only females as participants [ 31 , 54 , 61 , 62 , 69 ], 1 study with only male participants [ 70 ] and from the remaining studies conducted on both male and female participants, 15 studies reported the prevalence of violent communication among each gender separately [ 9 , 20 , 37 , 38 , 40 , 41 , 42 , 43 , 55 , 57 , 59 , 63 , 66 , 67 , 68 ]. Among the 32 studies that reported sampling method, 24 used the probability sampling method [ 9 , 20 , 30 , 31 , 32 , 33 , 37 , 38 , 40 , 41 , 42 , 53 , 54 , 55 , 57 , 58 , 60 , 61 , 62 , 63 , 64 , 65 , 68 , 69 ] and 8 used the non-probability sampling method [ 8 , 36 , 39 , 43 , 52 , 59 , 66 , 70 ]. Fifteen studies were conducted in organisations under the healthcare sector [ 9 , 31 , 32 , 41 , 43 , 52 , 53 , 54 , 55 , …”