Bullying behaviour in schools, socioeconomic position and psychiatric morbidity: a cross-sectional study in late adolescents in Greece

Chinese Medicine

Venetsanos Mavreas²  Stylianos Stylianidis³  Ricardo Araya¹  Stefanos Bellos²  Tatiana Gkatsa²  Petros Skapinakis²  Konstantina Magklara⁴ 

[1] Academic Unit of Psychiatry, School of Social and Community Medicine, University of Bristol, Bristol, UK;Department of Psychiatry, University of Ioannina, School of Medicine, Ioannina, Greece;Department of Psychology, Panteion University of Social and Political Sciences, Athens, Greece;Department of Psychiatry, University of Ioannina, School of Medicine, Ioannina 45110, Greece

关键词: Perpetrators;    Victims;    Psychiatric morbidity;    Socioeconomic status;    Adolescents;    Bullying;   

Others  :  791442
DOI  :  10.1186/1753-2000-6-8

 received in 2011-08-21, accepted in 2012-02-12,  发布年份 2012

【 摘 要 】

Background

Bullying is quite prevalent in the school setting and has been associated with the socioeconomic position and psychiatric morbidity of the pupils. The aim of the study was to investigate the association between bullying and socioeconomic status in a sample of Greek adolescents and to examine whether this is confounded by the presence of psychiatric morbidity, including sub-threshold forms of illness.

Methods

5,614 adolescents aged 16-18 years old and attending 25 senior high schools were screened and a stratified random sample of 2,427 were selected for a detailed interview. Psychiatric morbidity was assessed with a fully structured psychiatric interview, the revised Clinical Interview Schedule (CIS-R), while bullying was assessed with the revised Olweus bully/victim questionnaire. The following socio-economic variables were assessed: parental educational level and employment status, financial difficulties of the family and adolescents' school performance. The associations were investigated using multinomial logit models.

Results

26.4% of the pupils were involved in bullying-related behaviours at least once monthly either as victims, perpetrators or both, while more frequent involvement (at least once weekly) was reported by 4.1%. Psychiatric morbidity was associated with all types of bullying-related behaviours. No socioeconomic associations were reported for victimization. A lower school performance and unemployment of the father were significantly more likely among perpetrators, while economic inactivity of the mother was more likely in pupils who were both victims and perpetrators. These results were largely confirmed when we focused on high frequency behaviours only. In addition, being overweight increased the risk of frequent victimization.

Conclusions

The prevalence of bullying among Greek pupils is substantial. Perpetration was associated with some dimensions of adolescents' socioeconomic status, while victimization showed no socioeconomic associations. Our findings may add to the understanding of possible risk factors for bullying behaviours in adolescence.

【 授权许可】

   
2012 Magklara et al; licensee BioMed Central Ltd.

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