Prevalence of Bullying and its Relationship With TraumaSymptoms in Young Iranian Students مقالة

Objective: Bullying and peer victimization in school are serious concerns for students, parents, psychologists, and school officials around the world. This descriptive study examined bullying/victimization among Iranian students and the relationship between bullying and trauma symptoms. Methods: This study was a cross-sectional research and descriptive correlative study. Descriptive statistics and Pearson correlation were used to analyze the data. The Revised Olweus Bully/Victim Questionnaire and Trauma Symptoms Checklist for Children (TSCC-A) were administered to 591(325males and 266 females) students aged 10 to 14 year. Results: The results revealed that 38.4 % of students reported bullying behavior. In addition, victims had the highest level of depression, anxiety, and anger compared to uninvolved students. Bullies were not related to trauma symptoms. Conclusion: Conclusions include detailed recommendations for further empirical studies.

The Revised Olweus Bully/Victim Questionnaire and Trauma Symptoms Checklist for Children (TSCC-A) were administered to 591(325males and 266 females) students aged 10 to 14 year. Victim and bully groups had the heaviest symptom load, including aggression, de- linquency, depression, confusion, self-destructive/identity problems, and suicidality, which may lead to psychopathol- ogy (Ivarsson & Broberg, 2005). Bullied children are more likely to report feelings of anxiety, depression, and low self-esteem compared to their non-bullied peers (Kowalski & Limber, 2013). Another recent and large scaled study conducted by Josephson Institute (2010) on over 45000 students from 78 public and 22 private school students, aged between 15-18 year, revealed that about 50% of the students did bullying, and 47% of the students were victimized at least in one type of bullying. A meta-analytic review of cross-sectional studies found that young people who were victimized by bullying display significantly higher levels of anxiety compared with their peers (Hawker & Boulton, 2000). In addition, research on bullying has consistently found an association with victim status and affective problems, particularly depressive symptomatology. , 2001) reported that victimization in grade 8 of the secondary school (13 years of age) was associated with newly incident symptoms of depression in the following years (Gar- cia & Margallo, 2014). Studies consistently report that psychosocial problems such as depression and anxiety are common symptoms experienced by both male and female victims of bullying (Hong and Espelage, 2012).