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Indian Pediatr 2017;54:841-843 |
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Profile of Bullies and
Victims Among Urban School-going Adolescents in Gujarat
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Harshil Anurag Patel, *Jagdish Varma, Shail Shah,
#Ajay Phatak and
#Somashekhar
Marutirao Nimbalkar
From Department of Pediatrics,*Department of
Psychiatry, Pramukhswami Medical College; and #Central
Research Services, Charutar Arogya Mandal; Karamsad, Gujarat, India.
Correspondence to: Prof Somashekhar Nimbalkar,
Professor of Pediatrics, Department of Pediatrics, Pramukhswami Medical
College, Karamsad-Anand-Gujarat 388325, India.
Email: [email protected]
Received: June 02, 2016;
Initial Review: August 31, 2016;
Accepted: July 01, 2017.
Published online: July 11, 2017.
PII:S097475591600074
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Objective: To assess the prevalence of bullying, identifying
bullies, victims and their associations. Methods: Questionnaire
having ‘Peer Interaction in Primary Schools’ and ‘Strength and
Difficulty Questionnaire’ scales, and demographic information was
administered to 7th, 8th and 9th graders (N=1106). Results:
Prevalence of bullying was 49%. Boys were more likely to be bullies (P=0.03),
whereas students having less friends (P=0.001), overweight/obese
(P=0.02), and boys (P<0.001) were more likely to be
victims. Association between bullying behavior and poor academic
performance was noted. Conclusions: We found high prevalence of
bullying. The reasons for the same and scope of intervention needs
further study.
Keywords: Aggression, Bullying, School-children,
Victimization.
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B ullying is defined as "intentional, repeated
negative (unpleasant or hurtful) behavior by one or more persons
directed against a person who has difficulty defending himself or
herself" [1]. These negative actions may be verbal, physical or in other
ways such as making faces or mean gestures, intentional exclusion from a
group etc. [1,2]. The short term effects of being subjected to bullying
includes school absenteeism, having low self-esteem, lack of confidence,
poorer grades in school; [3] whereas, in the long term, they are prone
to suffer from depression, anxiety and even suicidal ideation [4].
In previous studies in Indian schools, overall
prevalence of any form of bullying involvement was 53% [2,3,5]. This
study was undertaken to determine the profile of bullying among students
of 7 th, 8th
and 9th grades of urban
schools of Gujarat.
Methods
A cross-sectional survey was conducted in October and
November of 2014 in five conveniently selected English medium schools of
Vadodara (2) and Anand (3) after approvals from the Institutional Ethics
Committee of our institute, and school principals. Survey was
administered to participants after obtaining a written informed assent.
Survey included demographic variables like age, sex,
height and weight, scholastic performance and number of friends, Peer
Interaction in Primary School Questionnaire (PIPS) [6] and Strengths and
Difficulties Questionnaire (SDQ) [7].
English self-report version (11-17y) of SDQ was used
to assess psychosocial consequences in terms of emotional, behavioral
and inter-personal difficulties. SDQ has 25 items, both positively and
negatively worded with 5 subscales. Singh, et al. [8] have
reported acceptable confirmatory factor analysis properties of English
self-report SDQ in Indian adolescents. Segregation into victim, bully
and bully-victim was done based on two SDQ questions viz. "Other
people or young children pick on me or bully me" and "I fight a lot. I
can make other people do what I want."
PIPS is a self-reporting bullying and victimization
measure consisting of 22 items scored on a three-point scale: "never",
"sometimes" and "a lot". It has two subscales viz. Victim and
Bully. PIPS has been designed for use in primary schools; however, the
behaviors listed were equally relevant in current context [6].
PIPS subscale scores were used to assess variance by
demographic categories. Means on individual questions of the PIPS were
used to identify most frequent bully behaviors and victim experiences.
SDQ-based categorization was used for calculation of prevalence and
evaluation of differences in psychosocial consequences.
Results
PIPS subscale scores were significantly higher in
victims (n=328) compared to non-victims (n=778) [5.64
vs. 3.34, P <0.001] and bullies (n=331) compared to
non-bullies (n=775) [4.10 vs. 2.73, P<0.001].
Overall prevalence of any form of bullying was 49%, with bullies being
29.9% and victims being 29.7%. Being teased (0.68) and made fun of
(0.63) were the most frequently reported experiences by victims. Bullies
reported Teasing (0.75) and making fun of others (0.45) as the most
frequently used behaviors (Web Table I). PIPS victim scale
mean score was higher in the victim and bully-victim groups but,
equivocal in the bully group. Mean PIPS bully scale score was higher in
the bully-victim group but was almost equal in the bully and victim
group.
Males reported significantly higher bullying
experiences (both bullying others and victim experiences). Age had no
association with either being a bully (P=0.07) or being a victim
(P=0.37). Overweight/obese (P=0.02) and students having
less friends (P=0.001) were more likely to be victims (Table
I).
TABLE I Differences in Bullies and Victims by Demographic Characteristics
|
PIPS victim scale |
P value |
|
|
PIPS bully scale |
P value |
|
n |
Mean (SD) |
|
n |
Mean (SD) |
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Gender |
|
|
|
|
|
|
Female |
455 |
3.8 (2.94) |
0.03 |
455 |
2.5 (2.07) |
<0.001 |
Male |
642 |
4.2 (3.33) |
|
642 |
3.6 (2.55) |
|
BMI |
|
|
|
|
|
|
Underweight |
298 |
3.7 (2.76) |
0.019 |
300 |
2.9 (2.34) |
0.12 |
Normal |
588 |
4.1 (3.40) |
|
586 |
3.2 (2.48) |
|
Overweight/Obese |
71 |
4.8 (3.11) |
|
71 |
3.5 (2.37) |
|
Number of Friends |
|
|
|
|
|
|
<7 |
327 |
4.5 (3.56) |
0.001 |
326 |
2.8 (2.56) |
0.08 |
7 or more |
770 |
3.8 (2.99) |
|
771 |
3.2 (2.37) |
|
Academic performance (Score in current year) |
|
|
|
|
|
|
Upto 60% |
154 |
4.4 (3.49) |
0.014 |
155 |
3.4 (2.61) |
0.026 |
60 - 80% |
525 |
4.2 (3.15) |
|
527 |
3.3 (2.52) |
|
More than 80% |
418 |
3.7 (3.08) |
|
415 |
2.9 (2.22) |
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Victim and bully-victim groups had higher total
difficulties score compared to the non-affected group on SDQ (P<0.001).
Victim group had higher scores on emotional problems, hyperactivity and
peer problems compared to Bully group which had higher scores on conduct
problems, hyperactivity and lower scores on prosocial behavior.
Bully-victim group was most severely affected with higher scores on all
subscales of SDQ as compared to the non-affected group.
Discussion
We found 29.7% students being victimized by bullying.
Girls who are victims reported higher experience of emotional and
sensitive forms of bullying whereas boys who are victims reported higher
experience of physical and verbal means of bullying. Psycho-social
consequences assessment using SDQ showed that victims had higher
emotional problems, hyperactivity and peer problems.
Earlier researchers [1,9,10] have identified similar
patterns and have speculated that some victims of bullying can be timid
and may find it difficult to take part in relationships with peers.
Whereas, those who are hyperactive may exhibit a combination of anxiety
and aggressive traits (more likely to get categorized as bully-victim)
that may provoke their peers with hyperactive and irritating behavior
[1,9].
The strengths of the current study is its large
sample size across two centers. The limitations of the study were lack
of prior validity of PIPS in the study population, a sampling strategy
of convenience, inclusion of only urban English medium schools. Further,
link between computer gaming involving virtual violence and bullying
behavior was not assessed.
Bullying-related involvement in our study is
comparable to recent Indian studies [3,5] but quite high compared to
those reported in Western literature. Health Behavior in School-Aged
Children survey conducted in 40 countries documented the prevalence of
bullies, victims and bully-victims to be 10.7%, 12.6% and 3.6%,
respectively [11]. Like earlier studies, verbal bullying (teasing and
making fun) is the most frequent with physical forms not being
infrequent [2,3,5]. Previous research showed that boys are more likely
to be bullies and girls are more likely to be victims [3,12]. In our
study, boys are predominant in both bullies and victim sub-groups.
In summary, the fact that prevalence of bullying is
high combined with previous knowledge that bullying peaks in middle
school years [12], has short-term [2,3], long-term consequences [4], and
that parents and teachers may be many a times unaware [2] of the
prevalence, raise serious concern to address this problem. Role of
schools in bullying prevention in Indian context needs to be explored
further and appropriate guidelines needs to be developed.
Contributors: HP and JV: Study-design, data
acquisition, data analysis, writing the manuscript. SN: Design and
planning of the study, data acquisition, data analysis, revision of the
manuscript for important intellectual content. SS: Data acquisition,
data analysis, and revision of the manuscript for important intellectual
content. AP: Study design, data analysis, and revision of the manuscript
for important intellectual content. All authors approved the final
manuscript.
Funding: None; Competing Interest: None
stated.
What This Study Adds?
•
Male gender, being
obese/overweight, having six or less friends, and poor academic
performance were found to be associated with higher victim
experiences.
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