Bullying has become a significant public health issue,
particularly among youth. This study documents cyberbullying, homophobic
bullying and bullying at school or elsewhere and their correlates among both
heterosexual and sexual-minority high school students in Quebec (Canada).
A representative sample of 8,194 students aged 14–20 years
was recruited in Quebec (Canada) high schools. We assessed cyberbullying,
homophobic bullying and bullying at school or elsewhere in the past 12 months
and their association with current self-esteem and psychological distress as
well as suicidal ideations.
Bullying at school or elsewhere was the most common form of
bullying (26.1%), followed by cyberbullying (22.9%) and homophobic bullying
(3.6%). Overall, girls and sexual-minority youth were more likely to
experienced cyberbullying and other form of bullying as well as psychological
distress, low self-esteem and suicidal ideations. The three forms of bullying
were significantly and independently associated with all mental health
outcomes.
The results underscore the relevance of taking into account
gender and sexual orientation variations in efforts to prevent bullying
experience and its consequences.
...Table 1 details the
prevalence of measures across sexual attraction categories. Overall,
heterosexual and bisexual boys were more likely than their female counterparts
to report cyberbullying. Yet, bisexual girls and boys were more likely than
their heterosexual counterpart to report cyberbullying experiences. Very few
heterosexual adolescents reported having experienced homophobic bullying
(1.7%). However, the prevalence of homophobic bullying was relatively high
among gay and lesbian teenagers (29.4%), with proportion almost three times
higher among gay boys (46.9%) compared to lesbian girls (16.5%; p <.01).
Regarding bullying at school or elsewhere, results show that bisexual girls and
boys and both gay and questioning boys reported higher prevalence than
heterosexuals (24.5%).
Bisexual respondents reported significantly higher
prevalence of psychological distress and low self-esteem (62.3% and 41.1%,
respectively) than heterosexual youths (43.8% and 32% respectively) (p <.001).
Bisexual youth also reported almost two (2) times more suicidal ideations than
heterosexuals. Prevalences are respectively 46.4% and 24.2% for bisexuals and
heterosexuals with a significant difference (p <.001). We also
noted a significant higher prevalence of suicidal ideations among gays and
lesbians (33.9%; p <.001) as well as questioning youth
(25%; p <.001) when compared to heterosexuals.
Table 2 reveals a great
overlap between the three different forms of bullying and the mental health
indicators. Overall, victims of bullying report higher levels of psychological
distress, low self-esteem and suicidal ideations. Table 3 displays
logistic regression results for the three separate models: psychological
distress, low self-esteem and suicidal ideations. All models are significant (p <
0.001). The Hosmer-Lemeshow tests (Hosmer and Lemeshow, 2004) along with
insignificant p values revealed that the data fit well the
models (pvalues of 0.71, 0.42 and 0.64 respectively for psychological
distress, low self-esteem and suicidal ideations model). Also, values for the
variance inflation factor range from 1.01 to 1.21 across imputations for all
models, suggesting no issue regarding multicolinerarity (Sen and Srivastava, 1990)...
Full article at: http://goo.gl/fyYBkH
By:
1Département de sexologie, UQAM, Montréal,
Québec, Canada
2École de psychologie, Université Laval,
Québec, Canada
*Corresponding author: Martin Blais, Department
of Sexology, Université du Québec à Montréal, C.P. 8888, Succursale
Centre-Ville, Montréal, Québec, Canada, H3C 3P8, Email: ac.maqu@nitram.sialb,
Tel: +1 514 987, 3000, post: 4031
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