Adult Psychiatric and Suicide Outcomes of Bullying and Being Bullied by Peers in Childhood and Adolescence

By William E. Copeland, Dieter Wolke, A. Angold, E. Costello. JAMA psychiatry, 2013

1,183 citations recorded by the source corpus.

Context Both bullies and victims of bullying are at risk for psychiatric problems in childhood, but it is unclear if this elevated risk extends into early adulthood. Objective To test whether bullying and being bullied in childhood predicts psychiatric and suicidality in young adulthood after accounting for childhood psychiatric problems and family hardships. Design Prospective, population-based study of 1420 subjects with being bullied and bullying assessed four to six times between ages 9 and 16. Subjects were categorized as bullies only, victims only, bullies and victims (bully-victims), or neither. Setting and population Community sample Main Outcome Measure Psychiatric outcomes included depression, anxiety, antisocial personality disorder, substance disorders, and suicidality (including recurrent thoughts of death, suicidal ideation, or a suicide attempt) were assessed in young adulthood (ages 19, 21, and 24/25/26) by structured diagnostic interviews. Results Victims and bully-victims had elevated rates of young adult psychiatric disorder, but also elevated rates of childhood psychiatric disorders and family hardships. After controlling for childhood psychiatric problems or family hardship, victims continued to have higher prevalence of agoraphobia (odds ratio (OR), 4.6; 95% confidence interval (CI), 1.7–12.5, p <0.01), generalized anxiety (OR, 2.7; 95% CI, 1.1–6.3, p <0.001), and panic disorder (OR, 3.1; 95% CI, 1.5–6.5, p <0.01), and bully-victims were at increased risk of young adult depression (OR, 4.8; 95% CI, 1.2–19.4, p <0.05), panic disorder (OR, 14.5; 95% CI, 5.7–36.6, p <0.001), agoraphobia (females only; OR, 26.7; 95% CI, 4.3–52.5, p <0.001), and suicidality (males only: OR, 18.5; 95% CI, 6.2–55.1, p <0.0001). Bullies were at risk for antisocial personality disorder only (OR, 4.1; 95% CI, 1.1–15.8, p < 0.04). Conclusion The effects of being bullied are direct, pleiotropic and long- lasting with the worst effects for those who are both victims and bullies.

Subfields: Clinical Psychology, Social Psychology

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/8ce7bb197527ef639ef188ca7bbadbf112db3705

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Citations in the corpus

Bullying Victimization and Perpetration among U.S. Children and Adolescents: 2016 National Survey of Children’s Health (2018, background): “These findings are consistent with previous research that found that youth with internalizing problems (Cook et al. 2010; Copeland et al. 2013) are more likely to be bullied, as are youth with a variety of special health care needs and disabilities (Blake et al.”
The Personality Trait of Environmental Sensitivity Predicts Children’s Positive Response to School-Based Antibullying Intervention (2018, background): “Importantly, associations between bullying behaviors and mental health problems are not restricted to childhood but extend well into adulthood, even when accounting for other important childhood risks and preexisting psychiatric problems (Copeland et al., 2013).”
Understanding the psychology of bullying: Moving toward a social-ecological diathesis-stress model. (2015, background): “perpetration, a tendency that Cullen (2009) suggests in explaining the 1998 Columbine massacre.”
Bullying in schools: the power of bullies and the plight of victims. (2014, background): “In one of the most recent long-term longitudinal studies examining psychiatric outcomes in a large community sample across preadolescence to early adulthood, victims and bully-victims displayed elevated rates of psychiatric disorders in young adulthood (Copeland et al. 2013).”
Adult health outcomes of childhood bullying victimization: evidence from a five-decade longitudinal British birth cohort. (2014, background): “This limitation was recently addressed in a population-based study from the United States (13) that used prospective measures of bullying between ages 9 and 16 years and repeated measures of psychiatric outcomes to age 25.”
Paradise Lost: The Neurobiological and Clinical Consequences of Child Abuse and Neglect. (2016, background): “Copeland et al. (2013) reported on 1,420 study participants who were either bullied or engaged in bullying between the ages of 9 and 16 years.”
Long-term adult outcomes of peer victimization in childhood and adolescence: Pathways to adjustment and maladjustment. (2015, background): “One potent blend is the combination of aggressive tendencies alongside victimization experiences, with evidence that this group of “bully victims” or “aggressive victims” appears to be at far greater risk than “pure” or “passive victims,” both concurrently (e.g., Haynie et al., 2001; Kumpulainen, Rä”