Risk Factors Associated With Bullying at School and Electronic Bullying in U.S. Adolescent Females With Asthma

Abstract

Although adolescent females with asthma are at increased risk for bullying, relationships between bullying at school and electronic bullying and demographics, mental health issues, and substance use have not specifically been studied in these young women. The purpose of this research was to examine such relationships among adolescent females with asthma. Complex sampling software was used to extrapolate frequencies and χ2 analyses to adolescent females with asthma. In this U.S. sample of adolescent females with asthma ( n = 1,634), younger age, mental health issues, and substance use were significantly related to bullying at school and electronic bullying, while race/ethnicity and grade in school were significantly related only to bullying at school. In general, findings are consistent with previous research regarding relationships between bullying and risk factors among all U.S. adolescent females. Guidance by school nurses is needed to create effective supports for victimization reduction in this vulnerable group.

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“…Prior research has found that adolescents with asthma are more likely to experience bully victimization than those without asthma (Gibson-Young et al, 2014), and among adolescents with asthma, females are more likely than males to be victimized (Hertz et al, 2015). As was the case in our past research (McCabe & Strauss, 2020), many of the studies concerning male and female adolescent bully victimization among those with and without chronic medical conditions have focused on individual-level factors related to bully victimization (Gibson-Young et al, 2014;Muhammad et al, 2018). We found an association between bully victimization and asthma in adolescent females (McCabe & Strauss, 2020), with some individual characteristics, such as age and grade in school, differentiating adolescent females with asthma who were victims of bullying from those who were not.…”

“…There was also a relationship between vandalism and adolescent males with asthma, but this relationship was the converse of the expected outcome. Study findings go beyond prior research that focused on individual level factors related to bullying in adolescents with and without chronic health conditions (e.g., Gibson-Young et al, 2014;Muhammad et al, 2018;McCabe & Strauss, 2020) in highlighting the need to also examine neighborhood factors regarding the bullying of adolescents with asthma. Of high importance is to study these various factors and acquire data from the source, the adolescents themselves.…”

“…In the general adolescent population, there is growing attention to bullying (Eugene et al, 2021;Salmon et al, 2018) and interest in neighborhood influences on asthma control (DePriest et al, 2018). Prior research has examined individual factors associated with bullying in the general population (Hertz et al, 2015;Merrill & Hanson, 2016), adolescents with asthma (Gibson-Young et al, 2014), and adolescent females with asthma (McCabe & Strauss, 2020). Still, there is a lack of reporting on the influence of neighborhood factors in adolescents with asthma and bully victimization.…”

“…This is considerably lower than the proportions of both adolescent males and adolescent females with asthma reported to have been bullied in the current study. Of note, prior research involving bullying of adolescents with asthma, including that of Merrill and Hanson (2016) and McCabe and Strauss (2020), analyzed data that surveyed the adolescents themselves and the current data from NSCH 2019 surveyed an adult household member.…”

“…Three separate topical questionnaire versions were created to capture data for children ages 0-5, 6-11, and 12-17 (U.S. Census Bureau, 2020). This study will use data from the questionnaire for children 12-17 years old, specifically focusing on adolescents with asthma aged 15-17 years, consistent with our prior research involving female adolescents with asthma (McCabe & Strauss, 2020). We subsequently refer to adolescents aged 15-17 years as adolescents.…”