Temporal Trends in Bullying Victimization Among Adolescents Aged 12-15 Years From 29 Countries: A Global Perspective

Abstract

Purpose: Bullying victimization among adolescents is a major public health concern. However, multicountry studies investigating temporal trends of bullying victimization among adolescents are scarce, especially from a global perspective. Thus, we aimed to examine the temporal trends of bullying victimization among school-going adolescents between 2003 and 2017 in 29 countries from Africa (n = 5), Asia (n = 18), and the Americas (n = 6).

Methods: Data on 191,228 students aged 12-15 years [mean (standard deviation) age 13.7 (1.0) years; 48.9% boys] who participated in the Global School-based Student Health Survey were analyzed. Bullying victimization was based on self-report and referred to being bullied at least once in the past 30 days. The prevalence (95% confidence interval) of bullying victimization was calculated for each survey. Crude linear trends in bullying victimization were examined by linear regression models.

Results: The mean prevalence of bullying victimization across all surveys was 39.4%. There was a large variation in the trends of bullying victimization across countries with a significant increasing and decreasing trend being observed in 6 and 13 countries, respectively. Myanmar, Egypt, and the Philippines showed the sharpest increase. The decrease was modest in most countries which showed a decreasing trend. The remaining countries showed stable trends (n = 10) but some countries such as Seychelles showed consistently high prevalence over time (i.e., ≥ 50%).

Discussion: Decreasing trends of bullying victimization were more common than increasing or stable trends in our study including adolescents from 29 countries. However, a high prevalence of bullying was observed in most countries, and thus, further global efforts to combat bullying victimization are necessary.

Keywords: Aggression; Epidemiology; Multi-country; Prevalence; School bullying; Youth.