Mental Health Of The Bullies And Their Victims

[Chaotic Muslem]

Suicidal Thoughts Common Among Victimized Youth

Suicidal ideation is significantly more common among adolescents who have experienced any form of victimization compared with those who have not, new research shows.

Heather Turner, PhD, from the University of New Hampshire, in Durham, and colleagues found that the risk for suicidal ideation was 2.4 times greater among youth who experienced peer victimization in the past year compared with youth who had not experienced bullying.

Thoughts of suicide were also 3.4 times greater among youth who were sexually assaulted and 4.4 times greater among youth who had been mistreated by parents or caregivers.

Youth who had been exposed to 7 or more types of victimization in the past year were almost 6 times as likely to report suicidal ideation as nonexposed youth.

"We know that many adolescents are exposed to several different types of victimization, often within a fairly short period of time, so one of the important advantages of our survey is that it is a more comprehensive assessment of victimization exposure than usual," Dr. Turner told Medscape Medical News.

"And I think the findings emphasize the need to include comprehensive victim assessment that takes in a wide array of different types of victimization when considering suicide intervention and prevention efforts in general."

The study was published online October 22 in Archives of Pediatric and Adolescent Medicine.

All Types of Victimization

Because earlier studies investigating the effect of victimization on suicidal ideation have typically focused on only 1 form of victimization, researchers used 2 waves of longitudinal data to examine the effects of several forms of victimization on suicidal ideation.

The wave 1 survey was conducted between January and May, 2008; the second wave was conducted approximately 2 years later.

An enhanced version of the Juvenile Victimization Questionnaire was used in both waves of the study, and 1 item from the Trauma Symptoms Checklist for Children was used to assess suicidal ideation.

Results showed that 4.3% of the total sample of 1186 children and adolescents between the ages of 10 to 17 years in wave 1 experienced suicidal ideation in the month preceding the interview, with females reporting ideation rates almost twice those of males.

The forms of victimization associated with the greatest percentage of youth reporting ideation included maltreatment, with over 16% of maltreated youth reporting suicidal ideation compared with 2.7% of adolescents who had not been maltreated.

Some 23% of sexually assaulted youth also reported suicidal ideation vs 3.7% of those who had not been sexually assaulted.

Almost 16% of adolescents who had been exposed to 7 or more individual types of victimization reported suicidal ideation in the past month, investigators add.

There was also a "substantial" association between suicidal ideation and living in a household with a stepparent or unmarried parent partner.

Victimization exposure did not fully explain this association, as investigators point out, and the particularly strong association between suicidal ideation and stepfamily households is both "worrisome" and warrants more attention, researchers suggest.

"I think it's important to recognize that we're talking about the kinds of victimization many adolescents experience," Dr. Turner said.

"So this is about the accumulation of different types of victimization episodes across multiple domains in adolescence, and this accumulation is what creates the greatest risk of suicidal ideation.

"Our findings show how important it is to take a more holistic youth-centered approach in promoting youth health and well-being and reducing suicidal risk."

Beyond Mood Disorders

Peter A. Wyman, PhD, from the University of Rochester Medical Center in New York, told Medscape Medical News that what this study adds is the finding that multiple victimization episodes have an effect on suicidal ideation "above and beyond" a diagnosis of mood disorder.

"It also underscores the fact that some youth are vulnerable to multiple forms of victimization, particularly when from very adverse family environments," he added.

Dr. Wyman also noted that the suicide prevention field typically emphasizes the role of mood problems along with other psychiatric and substance use disorders in suicide risk.

This focus usually translates into strategies to identify youth with these specific disorders before making a referral for treatment.

"Far less attention has been given to clarifying the contributions of adolescents' social environment and experiences such as being victims of bullying," Dr. Wyman said.

"So this study draws attention to considering doing an assessment of at-risk youth by asking about peers and events that happen in families as well as exposure to violence, as they can have added risk beyond a single event."

The authors and Dr. Wyman have disclosed no relevant financial relationships.

Arch Pediatr Adolesc Med. Published online October 22, 2012. Abstract

on the other side....

Bullying Strongly Linked to Mental Health Disorders

NEW ORLEANS — Children diagnosed with mental health disorders are at least 3 times more likely to be labelled as bullies as those without such diagnoses, new research shows.

A nationwide survey found that 20% of US high school students reported being bullied on school property and that 16% reported being cyberbullied in the past 12 months.

"The presence of a mental health disorder diagnosis, regardless of the type, is strongly associated with being a bully," said principal investigator Frances G. Turcotte-Benedict, MD, a fellow in pediatric emergency medicine at Hasbro Children's Hospital in Providence, Rhode Island.

The findings of the study were presented here at the 2012 American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) National Conference and Exhibition.

Although it is well established that victims of bullying are at increased risk for mental health disorders and suicide, less is known about the mental health status of those who do the bullying, Dr. Turcotte-Benedict pointed out.

"Victims are at increased risk for depression, anxiety, and psychosomatic complaints, while we believe that bullies are at increased risk for substance abuse, academic problems, and violence," she said.

"We wanted to identify the prevalence of bullying among children with mental health disorders and to determine if the diagnosis of a mental health disorder should be considered a risk factor for bullying behavior," she said. "Our hypothesis was that children with a mental health illness would be more likely to bully other children."

Need for Psychological Support

Dr. Turcotte-Benedict and colleagues reviewed data on 63,997 children, aged 6 to 17 years, provided by their parents or guardians in the 2007 National Survey of Children's Health. Bivariate analyses and logistic regression were performed to assess the association between mental health status and being identified as a bully.

The survey showed that 15.2% of US children were identified as bullies by their own parent or guardian and that 16.6% had been diagnosed with at least 1 mental health disorder. Children with mental health disorders were most likely to be white, non-Hispanic males.

Significant differences were observed in mental health status according to age, neighborhood safety, parent-child communication, type of school, and bullying status. The logistic regression analysis controlled for these.

Overall, children with mental health disorders were 3 times more likely to bully other children. Of 10,616 children with a mental health diagnosis, 2503 (29.8%) demonstrated bullying behavior. Of 53,445 without a mental health diagnosis, 4986 (12.4%) were considered bullies.

A subanalysis of the type of mental health disorder, adjusted for age, sex, race, ethnicity, neighborhood safety, and parent-child communication, found the following odds ratios for children who engage in bullying behavior vs children without these mental health diagnoses:

• Depression: odds ratio (OR), 3.31 (95% confidence interval [CI], 2.70 - 4.07)
  
• Anxiety: OR, 2.89 (95% CI, 2.41 - 3.46)
  
• Attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder: OR, 2.82 (95% CI, 2.43 - 3.28)
  
• Oppositional defiant disorder: OR, 6.02 (95% CI, 5.03 - 7.21)
  

When questioned as to the finding of bullying among children who are depressed, Dr. Turcotte-Benedict pointed out that depression in adolescence is often associated with impulsivity, which can fuel bullying behavior.

"These findings highlight the importance of providing psychological support not only to victims of bullying but to bullies as well," Dr. Turcotte-Benedict said. "In order to create successful antibullying prevention and intervention programs, we need more research to understand the relationship more thoroughly, and especially the risk profile of childhood bullies."

Worry About the Bully

Session moderator Benjamin Hoffman, associate professor of pediatrics at Oregon Health and Sciences University in Portland, said the findings fit his gestalt of the issue.

"This study confirms what most of us have long suspected. In a bully relationship, it's the bully I worry about most," he told Medscape Medical News.

"We worry about the short-term effects on the victim, and we understand there may be long-term ramifications, but the factors that underlie the bully's motivation to bully are important," he said.

"This study highlights that we have a lot more to learn about what gets the bully 'to bully.' I am sure the issues around mental health disorders will be the tip of the iceberg, and we will find issues of poverty, education, exposure to domestic violence, and so forth to also be factors. While the findings do not surprise me, it is important to have the science to back up this up. This will help us identify kids at risk before they develop bullying behaviors, so we can protect both the bully and the victim."

Dr. Turcotte-Benedict and Dr. Hoffman have disclosed no relevant financial relationships.

The American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) National Conference and Exhibition. Presented October 22, 2012.

Edited October 24, 2012 by Chaotic Muslem

[ImAli]

Bullying these days has gotten outright brutal. It used to be give me your lunch money or I'll punch your nose in.......but some of the stories I have read about these days are just pure evil.

[Ruq]

Theres so many ways for the bullies to get to their victims now because of internet social networks. It used to be that they could at least leave the bullies at the school gate, but now the bullying has gone online and kids get bullied through text messages also, so its 24/7. We expect kids to put up with stuff at school that adults wouldnt in the work place.

[Guest Monad]

plenty of bullies here on SC too. Although their guises are based on a belief system. ( Both sides )