The children who were severely bullied by their peers were almost 3.5 times more likely to report serious suicidal thoughts or suicide attempts in their teens, find researchers.
Those children who were bullied by their peers are more likely to face mental health issue, including suicidal thoughts and behaviours, later in their lives, finds a new study.
The research, which was published recently in the Canadian Medical Association Journal, found that the children who were severely bullied were almost 3.5 times more likely to report serious suicidal thoughts or suicide attempts compared with the none/low group at the age of 15.
“Our findings showed a general tendency, in about 15% of the children, of being exposed to the most severe levels of victimisation from the beginning of their education until the transition to high school,” says study co-author Dr. Marie-Claude Geoffroy and his colleagues from Canada’s McGill University.
“Those children were at greater risk of debilitating depressive/dysthymic symptoms or anxiety and of suicidality in adolescence than less severely victimised children, even after we accounted for a plethora of confounders assessed throughout childhood,” Dr. Geoffroy adds.
The researchers, who analysed the data from the Quebec Longitudinal Study of Child Development on 1,363 children born in 1997/98, also found that such children were more than twice as likely to report depression or low moods compared with those who experienced low or no victimization, and three times more likely to report anxiety.
“Although peer victimisation starts to decrease by the end of childhood, individuals in the severe trajectory group were still being exposed to the highest level of victimisation in early adolescence,” write the authors.
“Our results, along with those of many other studies, suggest that severe peer victimization may contribute to the development of mental health problems in adolescence. Therefore, it is important to prevent severe victimization early in the lifespan,” they say.
The team has called for starting anti-bullying initiatives before children enter school.
