Why do some students want to be actively involved as peer educators, while others do not? Findings fromNoTrap!anti-bullying and anti-cyberbullying program

School-based peer education interventions to improve health: a global systematic review of effectiveness

INTRODUCTION

Peer education, whereby peers ('peer educators') teach their other peers ('peer learners') about aspects of health is an approach growing in popularity across school contexts, possibly due to adolescents preferring to seek help for health-related concerns from their peers rather than adults or professionals. Peer education interventions cover a wide range of health areas but their overall effectiveness remains unclear. This review aims to summarise the effectiveness of existing peer-led health interventions implemented in schools worldwide.

METHODS

Five electronic databases were searched for eligible studies in October 2020. To be included, studies must have evaluated a school-based peer education intervention designed to address the health of students aged 11-18-years-old and include quantitative outcome data to examine effectiveness. The number of interventions were summarised and the impact on improved health knowledge and reductions in health problems or risk-taking behaviours were investigated for each health area separately, the Mixed Methods Appraisal Tool was used to assess quality.

RESULTS

A total of 2125 studies were identified after the initial search and 73 articles were included in the review. The majority of papers evaluated interventions focused on sex education/HIV prevention (n = 23), promoting healthy lifestyles (n = 17) and alcohol, smoking and substance use (n = 16). Papers mainly reported peer learner outcomes (67/73, 91.8%), with only six papers (8.2%) focussing solely on peer educator outcomes and five papers (6.8%) examining both peer learner and peer educator outcomes. Of the 67 papers reporting peer learner outcomes, 35/67 (52.2%) showed evidence of effectiveness, 8/67 (11.9%) showed mixed findings and 24/67 (35.8%) found limited or no evidence of effectiveness. Of the 11 papers reporting peer educator outcomes, 4/11 (36.4%) showed evidence of effectiveness, 2/11 (18.2%) showed mixed findings and 5/11 (45.5%) showed limited or no evidence of effectiveness. Study quality varied greatly with many studies rated as poor quality, mainly due to unrepresentative samples and incomplete data.

DISCUSSION

School-based peer education interventions are implemented worldwide and span a wide range of health areas. A number of interventions appear to demonstrate evidence for effectiveness, suggesting peer education may be a promising strategy for health improvement in schools. Improvement in health-related knowledge was most common with less evidence for positive health behaviour change. In order to quantitatively synthesise the evidence and make more confident conclusions, there is a need for more robust, high-quality evaluations of peer-led interventions using standardised health knowledge and behaviour measures.

Profiles of Community Violence Exposure, Moral Disengagement, and Bullying Perpetration: Evidence from a Sample of Italian Adolescents

According to the Pathologic Adaptation Model of community violence exposure, repeated experiences of violence within the community lead youth to accept violence as a normative and legitimate strategy to cope with conflict, thus increasing their involvement in aggressive behaviors. This hypothesis has been under-investigated with reference to bullying at school. Using a person-centered analytical approach (latent profile analysis), this study examines the mediating role of moral disengagement as a type of normalizing cognition about violence, in the relationship between profiles of community violence exposure and perpetration of bullying. Eight hundred and two adolescents (11-18 years; 43.4% girls) from two different urban and societal contexts in Italy (Milan vs. Naples) participated in the study. Four profiles of exposure to community violence emerged. Context site and age influenced belonging to the four profiles. Being moderately exposed to violence, both as a victim and as a witness, was significantly associated with higher levels of moral disengagement and bullying perpetration. Being exposed as a witness and as a victim, and being exposed only as a witness were associated with bullying perpetration via the increase of moral disengagement. These findings support the Pathologic Adaptation Model and indicate that adolescents who experience higher levels of community violence, as a witness or both as a witness and a victim, are more likely to develop morally disengaged beliefs about violence, which in turn would increase the likelihood to perpetrate bullying. Results are also discussed in the context of social diversity.

Impact of peer education on sexual health knowledge among adolescents and young persons in two North Western states of Nigeria

Background

Generally, social development among young people is largely influenced by their peers. Peer education is a proven and effective approach for promoting reproductive health among young people, especially HIV/AIDS education. This study was conducted to assess the effectiveness of a peer-led education intervention in addressing sexual and reproductive health related knowledge and concerns among young people in Kaduna and Kano States, northwest Nigeria.

Methods

A pre and post-test study was conducted among 8930 young people aged 15–24 years who participated in the MTV Shuga Peer Education intervention selected from communities in Kaduna and Kano States. A baseline pre-test was conducted before the education program, and it was followed up with a post-test at the end of the five-day long peer education sessions.

Results

Majority of the respondents, 7846 (87.9%) were adolescents aged 15–19 years while the rest 1084 (12.1%) were young adults aged 20–24 years. A total of 6099 (68.3%) of the respondents correctly stated that condoms prevent pregnancy during the pre-test compared to 6429 (72.0%) peers during the post test. Lower abdominal pain was correctly indicated as a symptom of STI by 6282 (70.3%) and 6984 (78.2%) of the respondents at pre-test and post-test respectively. More males (58.5%) had good knowledge about condom use compared to the females, 51.9% (χ² = 24.62, p < 0.001). while more females (79.6%) compared to 74.7% males opined that going for HIV test with their sexual partner is important to them during the pre-test (χ² = 19.44, p≤ 0.001).However, no significant difference was observed on knowledge of condom use and opinion on going for HIV testing with sexual partner among either gender at post-test.

Conclusion

Significant positive changes in knowledge, views and opinions regarding STIs and HIV, HIV anti-stigma and the use of condoms were observed following exposure to the peer sessions of the MTV Shuga peer education intervention. Sustained exposure and access to informative and enlightening peer education sessions over time have the potential to comprehensively improve SRH knowledge, influence positive opinion change and in turn adoption of positive behaviours among young people.

Peer education is an approach to health promotion, in which community members are supported to promote health-enhancing change among their peers. This approach is being adopted to improve access to comprehensive sexual and reproductive health information among young people. Society for Family Health implemented a peer education intervention (MTV Shuga Naija Peer Education Project) among young people aged 15–24 years in Kaduna and Kano States, Nigeria. This study presents findings on the effectiveness of peer-education in addressing myths, misconceptions and improving knowledge on sexual and reproductive health issues.

The knowledge and opinion of the project beneficiaries were assessed before and after exposure to the project’s interventions (the MTV Shuga drama series and peer education). Findings from both assessments were compared and the results were presented in this article. In total, 8930 persons between the age of 15–24 years were assessed. We observed that more proportion of the respondents after exposure to the project’s intervention correctly identified that condom use can prevent pregnancy and that lower abdominal pain is a sign of sexually transmitted illnesses, when compared to before the intervention. Significant improvement was observed for most of other questions that the respondents were asked about.

We generally observed that the peer education strategy used in this study resulted in the knowledge of HIV/AIDS, sexually transmitted illnesses, contraception, and other reproductive health issues among young people. The use of peer-to-peer education should be encouraged and consistently adopted to improve knowledge of pertinent health issues among young people.

Voluntary Vs Nominated Peer Educators: a Randomized Trial within the NoTrap! Anti-Bullying Program

There is a debate in scientific literature about the effectiveness of a peer-led approach to anti-bullying interventions. In order to understand which circumstances and for whom these approaches work best, the present study was carried out within the NoTrap! anti-bullying program. Using a cluster design, classes were randomly assigned into two different peer educator recruitment strategies: volunteering (N = 500; 48% females; mean age = 13.5 years, ds = 1.3) vs peer nominated (N = 466; 38% females; mean age = 13.9 years, ds = 1.3). Results showed that voluntary peer educators suffered a higher level of victimization, while the nominated ones tended to be more popular and likable. Furthermore, a set of linear mixed-effect models showed that the program was effective in reducing bullying and victimization, and in increasing defending behaviour only in the voluntary recruitment condition. On the contrary, in classrooms under the peer nominated recruitment condition, bullying and victimization remained stable, and defending behaviour increased only for peer educators, but not for their classmates. This implies that the step of peer selection and recruitment must be kept into consideration in developing and validating an intervention, because of its possible impact on the effectiveness of the whole intervention.

Preconceito e bullying: marcas da regressão psíquica socialmente induzida

Resumo Os objetivos da pesquisa a ser relatada, baseada nos estudos da teoria crítica da sociedade, são: distinguir formas de violência escolar - o bullying e o preconceito - e relacioná-las com tipos de personalidade. Foram utilizadas escalas que detectam o sadomasoquismo, o narcisismo, a manifestação de preconceitos e o bullying. Tais escalas foram aplicadas a 161 universitários paulistanos, com as hipóteses de que bullying e preconceito têm relação significante, mas não plena; que a manifestação de preconceito está associada com características de personalidades sadomasoquistas e narcisistas, e que a autoria do bullying está mais relacionada com características de personalidade narcisista; o que sofre o bullying, por sua vez, não estaria associado com nenhum tipo das características de personalidade avaliadas. Essas hipóteses foram confirmadas, o que, dentro do referencial teórico utilizado, fortalece a análise de que se o progresso social como fim em si mesmo aperfeiçoa a sociedade, ao mesmo tempo leva os indivíduos a regredirem psiquicamente.