The association between bullying and early stages of suicidal ideation in late adolescents in Greece

Petros Skapinakis, Stefanos Bellos, Tatiana Gkatsa, Konstantina Magklara, Glyn Lewis, Ricardo Araya, Stelios Stylianidis, Venetsanos Mavreas

BMC Psychiatry

English

English

Bullying, Suicidal Ideation, Psychiatric Morbidity

Research

Policy Makers.

1 - 20 pages

School Bullying has often been connected with suicidal morbidity. Nevertheless, psychiatric morbidity might play a role in that as well. The focus of this article is to examine whether bullying behaviors and early stages of suicidal ideation is related to the presence or absence of psychiatric morbidity. To do that a sample of 5614 pupils aged 16-18 is used. Those pupils come from a total of 15 senior high-schools. Nevertheless, at the second stage of the research a random sectional sample was selected. Psychiatric morbidity and suicidal ideation were evaluated with the revisited Clinical Interview Schedule, while Bullying was evaluated with the revised Olweus bully/victim questionnaire. Victims of bullying were more probable to express suicidal ideation. This relation has been more strong among those who were victimized on a weekly basis. It has been nevertheless, independent to psychiatric morbidity. On the contrary, bullies do not express suicidal ideation. Those findings do not differ according to gender. Frequent victimization and suicidal ideation in late adolescents are strongly related according to the cross-sectional data provided. That can possibly allow us recognize those pupils in the school environment, who are more likely to express suicidal ideation.

An exceptional article, which shows clearly a serious consequence of school bullying in victims of it. That is the high possibility of expressing suicidal ideation. As a result, it is silently stated that there is a need to face the issue directly as it is multidimensional and can influence the life of the youth long after school. The importance of the article is found on that, while many recognize the need of holistic intervention to face bullying in primary education, there is just few who propose viable solutions for secondary education, where individual interventions-strategies are a necessity. Exposing though, the tragic consequences in the life of a victim of school bullying, brings up to now the need of facing the bullying phenomenon at all educational levels simultaneously.

http://www.biomedcentral.com/content/pdf/1471-244X-11-22.pdf

suicidal ideation.pdf

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